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WASHINGTON SQUARE 


Bv HENRY JAMES, Jr. 

AUTHOR OP 

“daisy miller” “an international episode” etc. 


ILLUSTRATED BY GEORGE DU MAURIER 



NEW YORK 

HARPER & BROTHERS, FRANKLIN SQUARE 

1881 




or 



Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1880, by 
Henry James, Jr. 

In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. 


All rights reserved. 


ILLUSTRATIONS. 


PAGE 

MARIAN ALMOND CAME UP TO CATHERINE IN COMPANY WITH A TALL 


YOUNG MAN Frontispiece 

HE HAD A SWEET, LIGHT TENOR VOICE 67 

“don’t let HER MARRY HIM !” 110 

“ MY DEAR GOOD GIRL !” HE EXCLAIMED, LOOKING DOWN AT HIS 
PRIZE. AND THEN HE LOOKED UP AGAIN, RATHER VAGUELY.... 164 
“l SHALL REGARD IT ONLY AS A LOAN,” SHE SAID 188 


IT WAS VERY DIFFERENT FROM HIS OLD — FROM HIS YOUNG — FACE. 262 



Washington Square. 



DuRiNa a portion 
of the first half of the 
present century, and 
more particularly dur- 
ing the latter part of 
it, there flourished and 
practised in the city 
of New York a phy- 
sician who enjoyed 
perhaps an exception- 
al share of the con- 
sideration which, in 
the U nited States, has 
always been bestowed 
upon distinguished 
members of the med- 
ical profession. This 
profession in America has constantly been held in 
honor, and more successfully than elsewhere has put 
forward a claim to the epithet of “liberal.” In a 
country in which, to play a social part, you must ei- 
ther earn your income or make believe that you earn 
it, the healing art has appeared in a high degree to 


8 


WASHINGTON SQUARE. 


combine two recognized sources of credit. It be- 
longs to the realm of the practical, which in the 
United States is a great recommendation ; and it is 
touched bj the light of science — a merit appreciated 
in a community in which the love of knowledge has 
not always been accompanied by leisure and oppor- 
tunity. 

It was an element in Doctor Sloper’s reputation 
that his learning and his skill were very evenly 
balanced; he was what you might call a scholarly 
doctor, and yet there was nothing abstract in his 
remedies — he always ordered you to take something. 
Though he was felt to be extremely thorough, he 
was not uncomfortably theoretic ; and if he some- 
times explained matters rather more minutely than 
might seem of use to the patient, he never went so 
far (like some practitioners one had heard of) as to 
trust to the explanation alone, but always left behind 
him an inscrutable prescription. There were some 
doctors that left the prescription without offering 
an^ explanation -at all ; and he did not belong to that 
class either, which was after all the most vulgar. It 
will be seen that I am describing a clever man ; and 
this is really the reason why Doctor Sloper had be- 
come a local celebrity. 

At the time at which we are chiefly concerned 
with him he was some fifty years of age, and his 
popularity was at its height. lie was very witty, 
and he passed in the best society of ISTew York for 
a man of the world — which, indeed, he was, in a 
very sufficient degree. I hasten to add, to antici- 
pate possible misconception, that he was not the 
least of a charlatan. He was a thoroughly honest 


WASHINGTON SQUARE. 


9 


man — honest in a degree of which he had perliaps 
lacked the opportunity to give the complete meas- 
ure ; and, putting aside the great good -nature of 
the circle in which he practised, which was rather 
fond of boasting that it possessed the ‘‘ brightest ” 
doctor in the country, he daily justified his claim to 
the talents attributed to him by the popular voice. 
He was an observer, even a philosopher, and to be 
bright was so natural to him, and (as the popular 
voice said) came so easily, that he never aimed at 
mere effect, and had none of the little tricks and 
pretensions of second-rate reputations. It must be 
confessed that fortune had favored him, and that he 
had found the path to prosperity very soft to his 
tread. He had married, at the age of twenty-seven, 
for love, a very charming girl. Miss Catherine Har- 
rington, of New York, who, in addition to her 
charms, had brought him a solid dowry. Mrs. Sloper 
was amiable, graceful, accomplished, elegant, and in 
1820 she had been one of the pretty girls of the 
small but promising capital which clustered aboiit 
the Battery and overlooked the Bay, and of which 
the uppermost boundary was indicated by the grassy 
way-sides of Canal Street. Even at the age of twen- 
ty-seven Austin Sloper had made his mark sufficient- 
ly to mitigate the anomaly of his having been chosen 
among a dozen suitors by a young woman of high 
fashion, who had ten thousand dollars of income and 
the most charming eyes in the island of Manhattan. 
These eyes, and some of their accompaniments, were 
for about five years a source of extreme satisfaction 
to the young physician, who was both a devoted and 
a very happy husband. 


10 


WASHINGTON SQUARE. 


The fact of his having married a rich woman 
made no difference in the line he had traced for 
himself, and he cultivated his profession with as 
definite a purpose as if he still had no other re- 
sources than his fraction of the modest patrimony 
'which, on his father’s death, he had shared with 
his brothers and sisters. This purpose had not 
been preponderantly to make money — it had been 
rather to learn something and to do something. To 
learn something interesting, and to do something 
useful — this was, roughly speaking, the programme 
he had sketched, and of which the accident of his 
wife having an income appeared to him in no degree 
to modify the validity. He was fond of his practice, 
and of exercising a skill of which he was agreeably 
conscious, and it was so patent a truth that if he were 
not a doctor there was nothing else ^e could be, that 
a doctor he persisted in being, in the best possible 
conditions. Of course his easy domestic situation 
saved him a good deal of drudgery, and his wife’s 
affiliation to the “ best people ” brought him a good 
many of those patients whose symptoms are, if not 
more interesting in themselves than those of the 
lower orders, at least more consistently displayed. 
He desired experience, and in the course of twenty 
years he got a great deal. It must be added that it 
came to him in some forms which, whatever might 
have been their intrinsic value, made it the reverse 
of welcome. His first child, a little boy of extraor- 
dinary promise, as the Doctor, who was not addict- 
ed to easy enthusiasm, firmly believed, died at three 
years of age, in spite of everything that the mother’s 
tenderness and the father’s science could invent to 


WASHINGTON SQUAKE. 


11 


save him. Two years later Mrs. Sloper gave birth 
to a second infant — an infant of a sex which ren- 
dered the poor child, to the Doctor’s sense, an inade- 
quate substitute for Ids lamented first-born, of whom 
he had promised himself to make an admirable man. 
The little girl was a disappointment ; but this was 
not the worst. A week after her birth the young 
mother, who, as the phrase is, had been doing well, 
suddenly betrayed alarming symptoms, and before 
another week had elapsed Austin Sloper was a wid- 
ower. 

For a man whose trade was to keep people alive 
he had certainly done poorly in his own family ; and 
a bright doctor who within three years loses his wife 
and his little boy should perhaps be prepared to see 
either his skill or his affection impugned. Our 
friend, however, escaped criticism ; that is, he es- 
caped all criticism but his own, which was much 
the most competent and most formidable. He 
walked under the weight of this very private cen- 
sure for the rest of his days,’ and bore forever the 
scars of a castigation to which the strongest hand he 
knew had treated him on the night that followed his 
wife’s death. The world, which, as I have said, ap- 
preciated him, pitied him too much to be ironical; 
his misfortune made him more interesting, and even 
helped him to be the fashion. It was observed that 
even medical families cannot escape the more insid- 
ious forms of disease, and that, after all. Doctor Slo- 
per had lost other patients besides the two I have 
mentioned; which constituted an honorable prece- 
dent. His little girl remained to him ; and though 
she was not what he had desired, he proposed to 


12 


WASHINGTON SQUARE. 


himself to make the best of her. He had on hand 
a stock of unexpended authority, by which the child, 
in its early years, profited largely. She had been 
named, as a matter of course, after her poor mother, 
and even in her most diminutive babyhood the Doc- 
tor never called her anything but Catherine. She 
grew up a very robust and healthy child, and her 
father, as he looked at her, often said to himself that, 
such as she was, he at least need have no fear of los- 
ing her. I say such as she was,” because, to tell 
the truth — But this is a truth of which I will de- 
fer the telling. 


II. 

When the child was about ten years old, he in- 
vited his sister, Mrs. Penniman, to come and stay 
with him. The Miss Slopers had been but two 
in number, and both of them had married early 
in life. The younger, Mrs. Almond by name, was 
the wife of a prosperous merchant and the mother 
of a blooming family. She bloomed herself, indeed, 
and was a comely, comfortable, reasonable woman, 
and a favorite with her clever brother, who, in the 
matter of women, even when they were nearly re- 
lated to him, was a man of distinct preferences. He 
preferred Mrs. Almond to his sister Lavinia, who had 
married a poor clergyman, of a sickly constitution 
and a flowery style of eloquence, and then, at the age 
of thirty-three,had been left a widow — without chil- 
dren, without fortune — with nothing but the mem- 
ory of Mr. Pennirnan’s flowers of speech, a certain 


WASHINGTON SQUARE. 


13 


vague aroma of which hovered about her own con- 
versation. IS’evertheless, he had offered her a home 
under his own roof, which Lavinia accepted with the 
alacrity of a woman who had spent the ten years of 
her married life in the town of Poughkeepsie. The 
Doctor had not proposed to Mrs. Penniman to come 
and live with him indefinitely; he had suggested 
that she should make an asylum of his house while 
she looked about for unfurnished lodgings. It is 
uncertain whether Mrs. Penniman ever instituted a 
search for unfurnished lodgings, but it is beyond dis- 
pute that she never found them. She settled her- 
self with her brother and never went away, and, when 
Catherine was twenty years old, her Aunt Lavinia 
was still one of the most striking features of her im- 
mediate entourage. Mrs. Penniman’s own account 
of the matter was that she had remained to take 
charge of her niece’s education. She had given 
this account, at least, to every one but the Doctor, 
who never asked for explanations which he could 
entertain himself any day with inventing. Mrs. 
Penniman, moreover, though she had a good deal 
of a certain sort of artificial assurance, shrunk, for 
indefinable reasons, from presenting herself to her 
brother as a fountain of instruction. She had not a 
high sense of humor, but she had enough to prevent 
her from making this mistake ; and her brother, on 
his side, had enough to excuse her, in her situation, 
for laying him under contribution during a consid- 
erable part of a lifetime. He therefore assented 
tacitly to the proposition which Mrs. Penniman 
had tacitly laid down, that it was of importance 
that the poor motherless girl should have a brill- 


u 


WASHINGTON SQUARE. 


iant woman near her. His assent could only be 
tacit, for he had never been dazzled by his sister’s 
intellectual lustre. Save when he fell in love with 
Catherine Harrington, he had never been dazzled, 
indeed, by ai^ feminine characteristics whatever; 
and though^Je was to a certain extent what is called 
a ladies’ doctor, his private opinion of the more com- 
plicated sex was not exalte^ He regarded its com- 
plications as more curious than edifying, and he had 
an idea of the beauty of reason, which was, on the 
whole, meagrely gratified by what he observed in 
his femalo patients. His wife had been a reasona- 
ble woman, but she was a bright exception ; among 
several things that he was sure of, this was perhaps 
the principal. Such a conviction, of course, did little 
either to mitigate or to abbreviate his widowhood ; 
and it set a limit to his recognition, at the best, of 
Catherine’s possibilities and of Mrs. Penniman’s min- 
istrations. He nevertheless, at the end of six months, 
accepted his sister’s permanent presence as an accom- 
plished fact, and as Catherine grew older, perceived 
that there were in effect good reasons why she should 
have a companion of her own imperfect sex. He was 
extremely polite to Lavinia, scrupulously, formally 
polite ; and she had never seen him in anger but 
once in her life, when he lost his temper in a theo- 
logical discussion with her late husband. With her he 
never discussed theology, nor, indeed, discussed any- 
thing; he contented himself with making known, 
very distinctly, in the form of a lucid ultimatum, 
his wishes with regard to Catherine. 

Once, when the girl was about twelve years old, 
he had said to her — 


WASHINGTON SQUARE. 


15 


“Try and make a clever woman of her, Lavinia ; 
I should like her to be a clever woman.” 

Mrs. Penniman, at this, looked thoughtful a mo- 
ment. “ My dear Austin,” she then inquired, “ do 
you think it is better to be clever than to be 
good ?” 

“Good for what?” asked the Doctor. “You are 
good for nothing unless you are clever.” 

From this assertion Mrs. Penniman saw no reason 
to dissent ; she possibly reflected that her own great 
use in the world was owing to her aptitude for many 
things. 

“ Of course I wish Catherine to be good,” the 
Doctor said next day ; “ but she won’t be any the 
less virtuous for not being a fool. I am not afraid 
of her being wicked ; she will never have the salt of 
malice in her character. She is ‘as good as good 
bread,’ as the French say; but six years hence I 
don’t want to have to compare her to good bread- 
and-butter.” 

“Are you afraid she will be insipid? My dear 
brother, it is I who supply the butter; so you 
needn’t fear !” said Mrs. Penniman, wdio had taken 
in hand the child’s “ accomplishments,” overlooking 
her at the piano, where Catherine displayed a cer- 
tain talent, and going with her to the dancing-class, 
where it must be confessed that she made but a 
modest figure. 

Mrs. Penniman was a tall, thin, fair, rather faded 
woman, with a perfectly amiable disposition, a high 
standard of gentility, a taste for light literature, and 
a certain foolish indirectness and obliquity of char- 
acter. She was romantic ; she was sentimental ; she 


16 


WASHINGTON SQUARE. 


had a passion for little secrets and mysteries — a very 
innocent passion, for' her secrets had hitherto always 
been as unpractical as addled eggs. She was not 
absolutely veracious ; but this defect was of no great 
consequence, for she had never had anything to con- 
ceal. She would have liked to have a lover, and to 
correspond with him under an assumed name, in let- 
ters left at a shop. I am bound to say that her im- 
agination never carried the intimacy further than 
this. Mrs. Penniman had never had a lover, but 
her brother, who w^as very shrewd, understood her 
turn of mind. “When Catherine is about seven- 
teen,” he said to himself, “ Lavinia will try and per- 
suade her that some young man with' a mustache 
is in love with her. It will be quite untrue ; no 
young man, with a mustache or without, will ever 
be in love with Catherine. But Lavinia will take it 
up, and talk to her about it ; perhaps, even, if her 
taste for clandestine operations doesn’t prevail with 
her, she will talk to me about it. Catherine won’t 
see it, and won’t believe it, fortunately for her peace 
of mind ; poor Catherine isn’t romantic.” 

She was a healthy, well -grown child, without a 
trace of her mother’s beauty. She was not ugly ; 
she had simply a plain, dull, gentle countenance. 
The most that had ever been said for her was that 
she had a “ nice ” face ; and, though she was an heir- 
ess, no one had ever thought of regarding her as a 
belle. Her father’s opinion of her moral purity 
was abundantly justified ; she was excellently, im- 
perturbably good ; affectionate, docile, obedient, and 
much addicted to speaking the truth. In her young- 
er years she was a good deal of a romp, and, though 


WASHINGTON SQUARE. 17 

it is ail awkward confession to make about one’s 
heroine, I must add that she was something of a 
glutton. She never, that I know of, stole raisins 
out of the pantrj ; but she devoted her pocket-mon- 
ey to the purchase of cream-cakes. As regards this, 
however, a critical attitude would be inconsistent 
with a candid reference to the early annals of any 
biographer. Catherine was decidedly not clever; 
she was not quick with her book, nor, indeed, with 
anything else. She was not abnormally deficient, 
and she mustered learning enough to acquit herself 
respectably in conversation with Iier contemporaries 
— among whom it must be avowed, however, that she 
occupied a secondary place. It is well known that 
in New York it is possible for a young girl to oc- 
cupy a primary one. Catherine, who was extremely 
modest, had no desire to shine, and on most social 
occasions, as they are called, you would have found 
her lurking in the background. She was extremely 
fond of her father, and very much afraid of him ; 
she thought him the cleverest and handsomest and 
most celebrated of men. The poor girl found her 
account so completely in the exercise of lier affec- 
tions that the little tremor of fear that mixed itself 
with lier filial passion gave the thing an extra relish 
rather than blunted its edge. Her deepest desire 
was to please him, and her conception of happiness 
was to know that she had succeeded in pleasing him. 
She had never succeeded beyond a certain point. 
Though, on the whole, he was very kind to her, she 
was perfectly aware of this, and to go beyond the 
point in question seemed to her really something to 
live for. What she could not know, of course, was 
2 


18 


WASHINGTON SQUARE. 


that she disappointed him, though on three or four 
occasions the Doctor had been almost frank about 
it. She grew up peacefully and prosperously; but 
at the age of eighteen Mrs. Penniman had not made 
a clever woman of her. Doctor Sloper would have 
liked to be proud of his daughter; but there was 
nothing to be proud of in poor Catherine. There 
wa^ nothing, of course, to be ashamed of ; but this 
was not enough for the Doctor, who was a proud 
man, and would have enjoyed being able to think of 
his daughter as an unusual girl. There would have 
been a fitness in her being pretty and graceful, 
intelligent and distinguished — for her mother had 
been the most charming woman of her little day — 
and as regards her father, of course he knew his own 
value. He had moments of irritation at having pro- 
duced a commonplace child, and he even went so 
far at times as to take a certain satisfaction in the 
thought that his wife had not lived to find her out. 
He was naturally slow in making this discovery 
himself, and it was not till Catherine had become a 
young lady grown that he regarded the matter as 
settled. He gave her the benefit of a great many 
doubts ; he was in no haste to conclude. Mrs. Pen- 
niman frequently assured him that his daughter had 
a delightful nature; but he knew how to interpret 
this assurance. It meant, to his sense, that Cathe- 
rine was not wise enough to discover that her aunt 
was a goose — a limitation of mind that could not fail 
to be agreeable to Mrs. Penniman. Both she and 
her brother, however, exaggerated the young girl’s 
limitations ; for Catherine, though she was very fond 
of her aunt, and conscious of the gratitude she owed 


WASHINGTON SQUARE. 


19 


her, regarded her without a particle of that gentle 
dread which gave its stamp to her admiration of her 
father. To her mind there was nothing of the in- 
finite about Mrs. Penniman ; Catherine saw her all 
at once, as it were, and was not dazzled by the ap- 
parition ; whereas her father’s great faculties seem- 
ed, as they stretched away, to lose themselves in a 
sort of luminous vagueness, which indicated, not 
that they stopped, but that Catherine’s own mind 
ceased to follow them. 

It must not be supposed that Doctor Sloper visit- 
ed his disappointment upon the poor girl, or ever 
let her suspect that she had played him a trick. On 
the contrary, for fear of being unjust to her, he did 
his duty with exemplary zeal, and recognized that 
she was a faithful and affectionate child. Besides, 
he was a philosopher : he smoked a good many cigars 
over his disappointment, and in the fulness of time 
he got used to it. He satisfied himself that he had 
expected nothing, though, indeed, with a certain odd- 
ity of reasoning. “I expect nothing,” he said to 
himself ; ‘‘ so that, if she gives me a surprise, it will 
be all clear gain. If she doesn’t, it will be no loss.” 
This was about the time Catherine had reached her 
eighteenth year ; so that it will be seen her father 
had not been precipitate. At this time she seemed 
not only incapable of giving surprises; it was al- 
most a question whether she could have received 
one — she was so quiet and irresponsive. People 
who expressed themselves roughly called her stolid. 
But she was irresponsive because she was shy, un- 
comfortably, painfully shy. This was not always 
understood, and she sometimes produced an impres- 


20 


WASHINGTON SQUARE. 


sion of insensibility. In reality, she was the softest 
creature in the world. 


III. 

As a child she had promised to be tall ; but when 
she was sixteen she ceased to grow, and her stature, 
like most other points in her composition, was not 
unusual. She was strong, however, and properly 
made, and, fortunately, her health was excellent. 
It has been noted that the Doctor was a philoso- 
pher, but I would not have answered for his philos- 
ophy if the poor girl had proved a sickly and suf- 
fering person. Her appearance of health constituted 
her principal claim to beauty ; and her clear, fresh 
complexion, in which white and red were very equal- 
ly distributed, was, indeed, an excellent thing to see. 
Her eye was small and quiet, her features were 
rather thick, her tresses brown and smooth. A dull, 
plain girl she was called by rigorous critics — a quiet, 
lady-like girl, by those of the more imaginative sort ; 
but by neither class was she very elaborately dis- 
cussed. When it had been duly impressed upon her 
that she was a young lady — it was a good while be- 
fore she could believe it — she suddenly developed 
a lively taste for dress: a lively taste is quite the 
expression to use. I feel as if I ought to write it 
very small, her judgment in this matter was by no 
means infallible ; it was liable to confusions and 
embarrassments. Her great indulgence of it was 
really the desire of a rather inarticulate nature to 


WASHINGTON SQUARE. 


21 


manifest itself; she sought to be eloquent in her 
garments, and to make up for her diffidence of 
speech by a tine frankness of costume. But if she 
expressed herself in her clothes, it is certain that 
people were not to blame for not thinking her a 
witty person. It must be added that, though she 
had the expectation of a fortune — Doctor Sloper for 
a long time had been making twenty thousand dol- 
lars a year by his profession, and laying aside the 
half of it — the amount of money at her disposal was 
not greater than the allowance made to many poorer 
girls. In those days, in New York, there were still 
a few altar-fires fiickering in the temple of Repub- 
lican simplicity, and Doctor Sloper would have been 
glad to see his daughter present herself, with a clas- 
sic grace, as a priestess of this mild faith. It made 
him fairly grimace, in private, to think that a child 
of his should be both ugly and overdressed. For 
himself, he was fond of the good things of life, and 
he made a considerable use of them; but he had a 
dread of vulgarity, and even a theory that it was in- 
creasing in the society that surrounded him. More- 
over, the standard of luxury in the United States 
thirty years ago was carried by no means so high as 
at present, and Catherine’s clever father took the 
old-fashioned view of the education of young per- 
sons. He had no particular theory on the subject ; 
it had scarcely as yet become a necessity of self-de- 
fence to have a collection of theories. It simply 
appeared to him proper and reasonable that a well- 
bred young woman should not carry half her fortune 
on her back. Catherine’s back was a broad one, 
and would have carried a good deal; but to the 


22 


WASHINGTON SQUARE. 


weight of the paternal displeasure she never vent- 
ured to expose it, and our heroine was twenty years 
old before she treated herself, for evening wear, to 
a red satin gown trimmed with gold fringe ; though 
this was an article which, for many years, she had 
coveted in secret. It made her look, when she 
sported it, like a woman of thirty ; but oddly enough, 
in spite of her taste for fine clothes, she had not a 
grain of coquetry, and her anxiety when she put 
them on was as to whether they, and not she, would 
look well. It is a point on which history has not 
been explicit, but the assumption is warrantable ; it 
was in the royal raiment just mentioned that she 
presented herself at a little entertainment given by 
her aunt, Mrs. Almond. The girl was at this time 
in her twenty -first year, and Mrs. Almond’s party 
was the beginning of something very important. 

Some three or four years before this. Doctor 
Sloper had moved his household gods up town, as 
they say in Hew York. He had been living ever 
since his marriage in an edifice of red brick, with 
granite copings and an enormous fan-light over the 
door, standing in a street within five minutes’ walk 
of the City Hall, which saw its best days (from the 
social point of view) about 1820. After this, the 
tide of fashion began to set steadily northward, as, 
indeed, in Hew York, thanks to the narrow channel 
in which it fiows, it is obliged to do, and the great 
hum of traffic rolled farther to the right and left of 
Broadway. By the time the Doctor changed his 
residence, the murmur of trade had become a mighty 
uproar, which was music in the ears of all good citi- 
zens interested in the commercial development, as 


WASHINGTON SQUARE. 


23 


they delighted to call it, of their fortunate isle. Doc- 
tor Sloper’s interest in this phenomenon was only in- 
direct — though, seeing that, as the years went on, 
half his patients came to be overworked men of busi- 
ness, it might have been more immediate — and when 
most of his neighbors’ dwellings (also ornamented 
with granite copings and large fan-lights) had been 
converted into offices, warehouses, and shipping agen- 
cies, and otherwise applied to the base uses of com- 
merce, he determined to look out for a quieter home. 
The ideal of quiet and of genteel retirement, in 
1835, was found in Washington Square, where the 
Doctor built himself a handsome, modern, wide- 
fronted house, with a big balcony before the draw- 
ing-room windows, and a flight of white marble steps 
ascending to a portal which- was also faced with 
white marble. This structure, and many of its 
neighbors, which it exactly resembled, were sup- 
posed, forty years ago, to embody the last results of 
architectural science, and they remain to this day 
very solid and honorable dwellings. In front of 
them was the square, containing a considerable 
quantity of inexpensive vegetation, enclosed by a 
wooden paling, which increased its rural and acces- 
sible appearance ; and round the corner was the 
more august precinct of the Fifth Avenue, taking 
its origin at this point with a spacious and confident 
air which already marked it for high destinies. I 
know not whether it is owing to the tenderness of 
early associations, but this portion of 'New York ap- 
pears to many persons the most delectable. It has 
a kind of established repose which is not of frequent 
occurrence in other quarters of the long, shrill city ; 


24 


WASHINGTON SQUARE. 


it has a riper, richer, more honorable look than any 
of the upper ramifications of the great longitudinal 
thoroughfare — the look of having had something of 
a social history. It was here, as you might have 
been informed on good authority, that you had come 
into a world which appeared to offer a variety of 
sources of interest ; it was here that your grand- 
mother lived, in venerable solitude, and dispensed 
a hospitality which commended itself alike to the 
infant imagination and the infant palate; it was 
here that you took your first walks abroad, following 
the nursery-maid with unequal step, and sniffing up 
the strange odor of the ailanthus-trees which at that 
time formed the principal umbrage of the Square, 
and diffused an aroma that you were not yet critical 
enough to dislike as it deserved; it was here, final- 
ly, that your first school, kept by a broad-bosomed, 
broad-based old lady with a ferule, who was always 
having tea in a blue cup, with a saucer that didn’t 
match, enlarged the circle both of your observations 
and your sensations. It was here, at any rate, that 
my heroine spent many years of her life ; which is 
my excuse for this topographical parenthesis. 

Mrs. Almond lived much farther up town, in an 
embryonic street, with a high number — a region 
where the extension of the city began to assume a 
theoretic air, where poplars grew beside the pave- 
ment (when there was one), and mingled their shade 
with the steep roofs of desultory Dutch houses, and 
where pigs and chickens disported themselves in the 
gutter. Tliese elements of rural picturesqueness 
have now wholly departed from Hew York street 
scenery; but they were to be found within the 


WASHINGTON SQUARE. 


25 


memory of middle-aged persons in quarters which 
now would blush to be reminded of them. Cathe- 
rine had a great many cousins, a 



Almond’s children, who ended 


number, she lived on terms of considerable intimacy.! 
When she was younger they had been rather afraid 
of her ; she was believed, as the phrase is, to be high- 
ly educated, and a person who lived in the intimacy 
of their Aunt Penniman had something of reflect- 
ed grandeur. Mrs. Penniman, among the little Al- 
monds, was an object of more admiration than sym- 
pathy. Her manners were strange and formidable, 
and her mourning robes — she dressed in black for 
twenty years after her husband’s death, and then sud- 
denly appeared, one morning, with pink roses in her 
cap — were complicated in odd, unexpected places 
with buckles, bugles, and pins, which discouraged 
familiarity. She took children too hard, both for 
good and for evil, and had an oppressive air of ex- 
pecting subtle things of them ; so that going to see 
her was a good deal like being taken to church and 
made to sit in a front pew. It was discovered after 
awhile, however, that Aunt Penniman was but an ac- 
cident in Catherine’s existence, and not a part of its 
essence, and that when the girl came to spend a Sat- 
urday with her cousins, she was available for “ fol- 
low -my -master,” and even for leap-frog. On this 
basis an understanding was easily arrived at, and for 
several years Catherine fraternized with her young 
kinsmen. I say young kinsmen, because seven of 
the little Almonds were boys, and Catherine had a 
preference for those games which are most conven- 
iently played in trousers. By degrees, however, the 


26 


WASHINGTON SQUARE. 


little Almonds’ trousers began to lengthen, and the 
wearers to disperse and settle themselves in life. 
The elder children were older than Catherine, and 
the bojs were sent to college or placed in counting- 
rooms. Of the girls, one married very punctually, 
and the other as punctually became engaged. It 
was to celebrate this latter event that Mrs. Almond 
gave the little party I have mentioned. Her daugh- 
ter was to marry a stout young stock-broker, a boy 
of twenty : it was thought a very good thing. 


lY. 

Mrs. Penniman, with more buckles and bangles 
than ever, came, of course, to the entertainment, ac- 
companied by her niece ; the Doctor, too, had prom- 
ised to look in later in the evening. There was to 
be a good deal of dancing, and before it had gone 
very far Marian Almond came up to Catherine, in 
company with a tall young man. She introduced 
the young man as a person who had a great desire 
to make our heroine’s acquaintance, and as a cousin 
of Arthur Townsend, her own intended. 

Marian Almond was a pretty little person of sev- 
enteen, with a very small figure and a very big sash, 
to the elegance of whose manners matrimony had 
nothing to add. She already had all the airs of a 
hostess, receiving the company, shaking her fan, say- 
ing that with so many people to attend to she should 
have no time to dance. She made a long speech 
about Mr. Townsend’s cousin, to whom she admin- 


WASHINGTON SQUARE. 


27 


istered a tap with her fan before turning away to 
other cares. Catherine had not understood all that 
she said ; her attention was given to enjoying Ma- 
rian’s ease of manner and flow of ideas, and to look- 
ing at the young man, who was remarkably hand- 
some. She had succeeded, however, as she often 
failed to do when people were presented to her, in 
catching his name, which appeared to be the same 
as that of Marian’s little stock-broker. Catherine 
was always agitated by an introduction ; it seemed 
a diflScult moment, and she wondered that some peo- 
ple — her new acquaintance at this moment, for in- 
stance — should mind it so little. She wondered 
what she ought to say, and what would be the con- 
sequences of her saying nothing. The consequences 
at present were very agreeable. Mr. Townsend, leav- 
ing her no time for embarrassment, began to talk to 
her with an easy smile, as if he had known her for 
a year. 

“ What a delightful party ! What a charming 
house ! What an interesting family ! What a pret- 
ty girl your cousin is !” 

These observations, in themselves of no great pro- 
fundity, Mr. Townsend seemed to offer for what they’ 
were worth, and as a contribution to an acquaintance. 
He looked straight into Catherine’s eyes. She an- 
swered nothing; she only listened, and looked at 
him ; and he, as if he expected no particular reply, 
went on to say many other things in the same com- 
fortable and natural manner. Catherine, though 
she felt tongue-tied, was conscious of no embarrass- 
ment ; it seemed proper that he should talk, and that 
she should simply look at him. What made it nat- 


28 


WASHINGTON SQUARE. 


ural was that he was so handsome, or, rather, as she 
phrased it to herself, so beautiful. The music had 
been silent for awhile, but it suddenly began again ; 
and then he asked her, with a deeper, intenser smile, 
if she would do him the honor of dancing with him. 
Even to this inquiry she gave no audible assent ; she 
simply let him put his arm round her waist — as she 
did so, it occurred to her more vividly than it had 
ever done before that this was a singular place for a 
gentleman’s arm to be — and in a moment he was 
guiding her round the room in the harmonious rota- 
tion of the polka. When they paused, she felt that 
she was red ; and then, for some moments, she stop- 
ped looking at him. She fanned herself, and looked 
at the flowers that were painted on her fan. He 
asked her if she would begin again, and she hesitated 
to answer, still looking at the flowers. 

“ Does it make you dizzy he asked, in a tone of 
great kindness. 

Then Catherine looked up at him ; he was cer- 
tainly beautiful, and not at all red. “ Yes,” she said ; 
she hardly knew why, for dancing had never made 
her dizzy. 

“ Ah, well, in that case,” said Mr. Townsend, we 
will sit still and talk. I will And a good place to sit.” 

He found a good place — a charming place ; a little 
sofa that seemed meant only for two persons. The 
rooms by this time were very full ; the dancers in- 
creased in number, and people stood close in front 
of them, turning their backs, so that Catherine and 
her companion seemed secluded and unobserved. 
“ TVs will talk,” the young man had said ; but he still 
did all the talking. Catherine leaned back in her 


WASHINGTON SQUARE. 


29 


place, with her eyes fixed upon him, smiling, and 
thinking him very clever. - He had features like 
young men in pictures; Catherine had never seen 
such features — so delicate, so chiselled and finished — 
among the young Hew Yorkers whom she passed in 
the streets and met at dancing-parties. He was tall 
and slim, but he looked extremely strong. Cathe- 
rine thought he looked like a statue. But a statue 
would not talk like that, and, above all, would not 
have eyes of so rare a color. He had never been at 
Mrs. Almond’s before ; he felt very much like a 
stranger; and it was very kind of Catherine to take 
pity on him. He was Arthur Townsend’s cousin — 
not very near ; several times removed — and Arthur 
had brought him to present him to the family. In 
fact, he was a great stranger in Hew York. It was 
his native place ; but he had not been there for many 
years. He had been knocking about the world, and 
living in queer corners; he had only come back a 
month or two before. Hew York was very pleas- 
ant, only he felt lonely. 

“ You see, people forget you,” he said, smiling at 
Catherine with his delightful gaze, while he leaned 
forward obliquely, turning toward her, with his el- 
bows on his knees. 

It seemed to Catherine that no one who had once 
seen him would ever forget him ; but though she 
made this refiection she kept it to herself, almost as 
you would keep something precious. 

They sat there for some time. He was very amus- 
ing. He asked her about the people that were near 
them ; he tried to guess wlio some of them were, 
and he made the most laughable mistakes. He criti- 


30 


WASHINGTON SQUARE. 


cised them very freely, in a positive, off-hand way. 
Catherine had never heard any one — especially any 
young man — talk just like that. It was the way a 
young man might talk in a novel ; or, better still, in 
a play, on the stage, close before the foot-lights, look- 
ing at the audience, and with every one looking at 
him, so that you wondered at his presence of mind. 
And yet Mr. Townsend was not like an actor ; he 
seemed so sincere, so natural. This was very inter- 
esting; but in the midst of it Marian Almond came 
pushing through the crowd, with a little ironical cry, 
when she found these young people still together, 
which made every one turn round, and cost Cathe- 
rine a conscious blush. Marian broke up their talk, 
and told Mr. Townsend — whom she treated as if she 
were already married, and he had become her cousin 
— to run awa}^ to her mother, who had been wishing 
for the last half hour to introduce him to Mr. Al- 
mond. 

“We shall meet again,” he said to Catherine as 
he left her, and Catherine thought it a very original 
speech. 

Her cousin took her by the arm, and made her 
walk about. “ I needn’t ask you what you think of 
Morris,” the young girl exclaimed. 

“ Is that his name ?” 

“ I don’t ask you what you think of his name, but 
what you think of himself,” said Marian. 

“ Oh, nothing particular,” Catherine answered, dis- 
sembling for the first time in her life. 

“ I have half a mind to tell him that !” cried Ma- 
rian. “It will do him good; he’s so terribly con- 
ceited.” 


WASHINGTON SQUARE. 


81 


‘‘ Conceited ?” said Catherine, staring. 

“ So Arthur says, and Arthur knows about him.” 

‘‘ Oh, don’t tell him !” Catherine murmured, im- 
ploringly. 

“ Don’t tell him he’s conceited ! I have told him 
so a dozen times.” 

At this profession of audacity Catherine looked 
down at her little companion in amazement. She 
supposed it was because Marian was going to be 
married that she took so much on herself ; but she 
wondered too, whether, when she herself should be- 
come engaged, such exploits would be expected of 
her. 

Half an hour later she saw her aunt Penniman 
sitting in the embrasure of a window, with her head 
a little on one side, and her gold eye-glass raised to 
her eyes, which were wandering about the room. In 
front of her was a gentleman, bending forward a 
little, with his back turned to Catherine. She knew 
his back immediately, though she had never seen it ; 
for when he left her, at Marian’s instigation, he had 
retreated in the best order, without turning round. 
Morris Townsend — the name had already become 
very familiar to her, as if some one had been re- 
peating it in her ear for the last half hour — Morris 
Townsend was giving his impressions of the com- 
pany to her aunt, as he had done to herself ; he was 
saying clever things, and Mrs. Penniman was smiling, 
as if she approved of them. As soon as Catherine 
had perceived this she moved away ; she would not 
have liked him to turn round and see her. But it 
gave her pleasure — the whole thing. That he should 
talk with Mrs. Penniman, with whom she lived and 


82 


WASHINGTON SQUARE. 


whom she saw and talked with every day — that 
seemed to keep him near her, and to make him 
even easier to contemplate than if she herself had 
been the object of his civilities ; and that Aunt La- 
vinia should like him, should not be shocked or star- 
tled by what he said, this also appeared to the girl a 
personal gain ; for Aunt Lavinia’s standard was ex- 
tremely high, planted as it was over the grave of her 
late husband, in which, as she had convinced every 
one, the very genius of conversation was buried. 
One of the Almond boys, as Catherine called them, 
invited our heroine to dance a quadrille, and for a 
quarter of an hour her feet at least were occupied. 
This time she was not dizzy ; her head was very 
clear. Just when the dance was over, she found 
herself in the crowd face to face with her father. 
Doctor Sloper had usually a little smile, never a very 
big one, and with this little smile playing in his clear 
eyes and on his neatly-shaved lips, he looked at his 
daughter’s crimson gown. 

“ Is it possible that this magnificent person is my 
child ?” he said. 

You would have surprised him if you had told 
him so ; but it is a literal fact that he almost never 
addressed his daughter save in the ironical form. 
Whenever he addressed her he gave her pleasure ; 
but she had to cut her pleasure out of the piece, as 
it were. There were portions left over, light rem- 
nants and snippets of irony, which she never knew 
what to do with, which seemed too delicate for her 
own use ; and yet Catherine, lamenting the limita- 
tions of her understanding, felt that they were too 
valuable to waste, and had a belief that if they passed 


WASHINGTON SQUARE. 


33 


over her head they yet contributed to the general 
sum of human wisdom. 

“ 1 am not magnificent,” she said, mildly, wishing 
that she had put on another dress. 

“You are sumptuous, opulent, expensive,” her 
father rejoined. “You look as if you had eighty 
thousand a year.” 

“Well, so long as I haven’t — ” said Catherine, il- 
logically. Her conception of her prospective wealth 
was as yet very indefinite. 

“ So long as you haven’t you shouldn’t look as if 
you had. Have you enjoyed your party ?” 

Catherine hesitated a moment ; and then, looking 
away, “I am rather tired,” she murmured. I have 
said that this entertainment was the beginning of 
something important for Catherine. For the sec- 
ond time in her life she made an indirect answer; 
and the beginning of a period of dissimulation is 
certainly a significant date. Catherine was not so 
easily tired as that. 

Nevertheless, in the carriage, as they drove home, 
she was as quiet as if fatigue had been her portion. 
Doctor Sloper’s manner of addressing his sister La- 
vinia had a good deal of resemblance to the tone he 
had adopted tow^ard Catherine. 

“ Who was the young man that was making love 
to you?” he presently asked. 

“Oh, my good brother!” murmured Mrs. Penni- 
man,in deprecation. 

“ He seemed uncommonly tender. Whenever I 
looked at you for half an hour, he had the most de- 
voted air.” 

“The devotion was not to me,” said Mrs. Penni- 

3 


34 


WASHINGTON SQUARE. 


man. “It was to Catherine; he talked to me of 
her.” 

Catherine had been listening with all her ears. 
“ Oh, Aunt Penniman !” she exclaimed, faintly. 

“ He is very handsome ; he is very clever ; he ex- 
pressed himself with a great deal — a great deal of 
felicity,” her aunt went on. 

“He is in love with this regal creature, then?” 
the Doctor inquired, humorously. 

“ Oh, father !” cried the girl, still more faintly, de- 
voutly thankful the carriage was dark. 

“ I don’t know that ; but he admired her dress.” 

Catherine did not say to herself in the dark, “ My 
dress only?” Mrs. Pennirnan’s announcement struck 
her by its richness, not by its meagreness. 

“ You see,” said her father, “ he thinks you have 
eighty thousand a year.” 

“ I don’t believe he thinks of that,” said Mrs. Pen- 
niman ; “ he is too refined.” 

“He must be tremendously refined not to think 
of that !” 

“Well, he is!” Catherine exclaimed, before she 
knew it. 

“ I thought you had gone to sleep,” her father an- 
swered. “ The hour has come !” he added to him- 
self. “Lavinia is going to get up a romance for 
Catherine. It’s a shame to play such tricks on the 
girl. What is the gentleman’s name ?” he went on, 
aloud. 

“I didn’t catch it, and I didn’t like to ask him. 
He asked to be introduced to me,” said Mrs. Penni- 
man, with a certain grandeur ; “ but you know how 
indistinctly Jefferson speaks.” Jefferson was Mr. 


WASHINGTON SQUARE. 


85 


Almond. “ Catherine, dear, what was tlie gentle- 
man’s name 

For a minute, if it had not been for the rumbling 
of the carriage, you might have heard a pin drop. 

“I don’t know. Aunt Lavinia,” said Catherine, 
very softly. And, with all his irony, her father be- 
lieved her. 


y. 

He learned what he had asked some three or four 
days later, after Morris Townsend, with his cousin, 
had called in Washington Square. Mrs. Penniman 
did not tell her brother, on the drive home, that she 
had intimated to this agreeable young man, whose 
name she did not know, that, with her niece, she 
should be very glad to see him ; but she was greatly 
pleased, and even a little flattered, when, late on a 
Sunday afternoon, the two gentlemen made their 
appearance. His coming with Arthur Townsend 
made it more natural and easy; the latter young 
man was on the point of becoming connected with 
the family, and Mrs. Penniman had remarked to 
Catherine that, as he was going to marry Marian, it 
would be polite in him to call. These events came 
to pass late in the autumn, and Catherine and her 
aunt had been sitting together in the closing dusk, 
by the flre-light, in the high back-parlor. 

Arthur Townsend fell to Catherine’s portion, 
while his companion placed himself on the sofa be- 
side Mrs. Penniman. Catherine had hitherto not 
been a harsh critic ; she was easy to please — she liked 


86 


WASHINGTON SQUARE. 


to talk with 3’oung men. But Marian’s betrothed, 
this evening, made her feel vaguely fastidious ; he 
sat looking at the fire and rubbing his knees with 
his hands. As for Catherine, she scarcely even pre- 
tended to keep up the conversation ; her attention 
had fixed itself on the other side of the room ; she 
was listening to what went on between the other 
Mr. Townsend and her aunt. Every now and then 
he looked over at Catherine herself and smiled, as if 
to show that what he said was for her benefit too. 
Catherine would have liked to change her place, to 
go and sit near them, where she might see and hear 
him better. But she was afraid of seeming bold — 
of looking eager; and, besides, it would not have 
been polite to Marian’s little suitor. She wondered 
why the other gentleman had picked out her aunt — 
how he came to have so much to say to Mrs. Benni- 
man, to whom, usually, young men were not espe- 
cially devoted. She was not at all jealous of Aunt 
Lavinia, but she was a little envious, and, above all, 
she wondered ; for Morris Townsend was an object 
on which she found that her imagination could ex- 
ercise itself indefinitely. His cousin had been de- 
scribing a house that he had taken in view" of his 
union with Marian, and the domestic conveniences 
he meant to introduce into it ; how Marian wanted a 
larger one, and Mrs. Almond recommended a smaller 
one, and how he himself was convinced that he had 
got the neatest house in New York. 

“It doesn’t matter,” he said ; “it’s only for three 
or four years. At the end of three or four years 
we’ll move. That’s the way to live in New York — 
to move every three or four years. Then you al- 


WASHINGTON SQUARE. 


87 


ways get the last thing. It’s because the city’s 
growing so quick — ^you’ve got to keep up with it. 
It’s going straight up town — that’s where 'New 
York’s going. If I wasn’t afraid Marian would be 
lonely, I’d go up there — right up to the top — and 
wait for it. Only have to wait ten years — they’ll 
all come up after you. But Marian says she wants 
some neighbors — she doesn’t want to be a pioneer. 
She says that if she’s got to be the first settler she 
had better go out to Minnesota. I guess we’ll move 
up little by little; when we get tired of one. street 
we’ll go higher. So you see we’ll always have a 
new house ; it’s a great advantage to have a new 
house ; you get all the latest improvements. They 
invent everything all over again about every five 
years, and it’s a great thing to keep up with the new 
things. I always try and keep up with the new 
things of every kind. Don’t you think that’s a 
good motto for a young couple — to keep ‘going 
higher?’ What’s the name of that piece of poetry 
— what do they call it ? — Excelsior E 

Catherine bestowed on her junior visitor only just 
enough attention to feel that this was not the way 
Mr. Morris Townsend had talked the other night, or 
that he was talking now to her fortunate aunt. But 
suddenly his aspiring kinsman became more inter- 
esting. He seemed to have become conscious that 
she was affected by his companion’s presence, and 
he thought it proper to explain it. 

“ My cousin asked me to bring him, or I shouldn’t 
have taken the liberty. He seemed to want very 
much to come ; you know he’s awfully sociable. I 
fold him I wanted to ask you first, but he said Mrs. 


88 


WASHINGTON SQUARE. 


Penniman had invited him. He isn’t particular 
what he says when he wants to come somewhere. 
But Mrs. Penniman seems to think it’s all right.” 

“We are very glad to see him,” said Catherine. 
And she wished to talk more about him, but she 
hardly knew what to say. “I never saw him be- 
fore,” she went on, presently. 

Arthur Townsend stared. 

“ Why, he told me he talked with you for over 
lialf an hour the other night.” 

“ I mean before the other night. That was the 
first time.” 

“ Oh, he has been away from Hew York — he has 
been all round the world. He doesn’t know many 
people here, but he’s very sociable, and he wants to 
know every one.” 

“ Every one ?” said Catherine. 

“Well, I mean all the good ones. All the pretty 
young ladies — like Mrs. Penniman !” And Arthur 
Townsend gave a private laugh. 

“ My aunt likes him very much,” said Catherine. 

“ Most people like him — he’s so brilliant.” 

“ He’s more like a foreigner,” Catherine sug- 
gested. 

“Well, I never knew a foreigner,” said young 
Townsend, in a tone which seemed to indicate that 
his ignorance had been optional. 

“Neither have I,” Catherine confessed, with more 
humility. “ They say they are generally brilliant,” 
she added, vaguely. 

“Well, the people of this city are clever enough 
for me. I know some of them that think they are 
too clever for me ; but they ain’t.” 


WASHINGTON SQUARE. 


39 


“ I suppose you can’t be too clever,” said Cathe- 
rine, still with humility. 

“ I don’t know. I know some people that call 
my cousin too clever.” 

Catherine listened to this statement with extreme 
interest, and a feeling that if Morris Townsend had 
a fault it would naturally be that one. But she did 
not commit herself, and in a moment she asked, 
“Now that he has come back, will he stay here 
always ?” 

“Ah !” said Arthur, “ if he can get something to do.” 

“ Something to do ?” 

“ Some place or other ; some business.” 

“ Hasn’t he got any ?” said Catherine, who had 
never heard of a young man — of the upper class — 
in this situation. 

“ No ; he’s looking round. But he can’t find 
anything.” 

“I am very sorry,” Catherine permitted herself 
to observe. 

“ Oh, he doesn’t mind,” said young Townsend. 
“ He takes it easy — he isn’t in a hurry. He is very 
particular.” 

Catherine thought he naturally would be, and 
gave herself up for some moments to the contempla- 
tion of this idea, in several of its bearings. 

“ Won’t his father take him into his business — his 
office ?” she at last inquired. 

“ He hasn’t got any father — he has only got a sis- 
ter. Your sister can’t help you much.” 

It seemed to Catherine that if she were his sister 
she would disprove this axiom. “Is she — is she 
pleasant?” she asked in a moment. 


40 


WASHINGTON SQUARE. 


“ I don’t know — I believe she’s very respectable,” 
said young Townsend. And then he looked across 
to his cousin and began to laugh. I say, we are 
talking about you,” he added. 

Morris Townsend paused in his conversation with 
Mrs. Pennirnan, and stared, with a little smile. Then 
lie got up, as if he were going. 

As far as you are concerned, I can’t return the 
compliment,” he said to Catherine’s companion. 
“But as regards Miss Sloper, it’s another affair.” 

Catherine thought this little speech wonderfully 
well turned ; but she was embarrassed by it, and she 
also got up. Morris Townsend stood looking at her 
and smiling ; he put out his hand for farewell. He 
was going, without having said anything to her ; but 
even on these terms she was glad to have seen him. 

“I will tell her what you have said — when you 
go !” said Mrs. Pennirnan, with a little significant 
laugh. 

Catherine blushed, for she felt almost as if they 
were making sport of her. What in the world could 
this beautiful young man have said ? He looked at 
her still, in spite of her blush, but very kindly and 
respectfully. 

“ I have had no talk with you,” he said, “ and 
that was what I came for. But it will be a good 
reason for coming another time ; a little pretext — if 
I am obliged to give one. I am not afraid of what 
your aunt will say when I go.” 

With this the two young men took their depart- 
ure ; after which Catherine, with her blush still lin- 
gering, directed a serious and interrogative eye to 
Mrs. Pennirnan, She was incapable of elaborate ar- 


vVAfeHINGTON’ J5QUARE. 


41 


tifice, and she resorted to no' jocular device — to no 
affectation of the belief that she had been maligned 
— to learn what she desired. 

‘‘What did you say you would tell me?” she 
asked. 

Mrs. Penniman came up to her, smiling and nod- 
ding a little, looked at her all over, and gave a twist 
to the knot of ribbon in her neck. “ It’s a great se- 
cret, my dear child ; but he is coming a-courting !” 

Catherine was serious still. “ Is that what he told 
you ?” 

“ He didn’t say so exactly ; but he left me to 
guess it. I’m a good guesser.” 

“ Do you mean a-courting me ?” 

“Hot me, certainly, miss ; though I must say he 
is a hundred times more polite to a person who has 
no longer extreme youth to recommend her than 
most of the young men. He is thinking of some 
one else.” And Mrs. Penniman gave her niece a 
delicate little kiss. “ You must be very gracious to 
him.” 

Catherine stared — she was bewildered. “I don’t 
understand you,” she said ; “ he doesn’t know me.” 

“ Oh yes, he does ; more than you think. I have 
told him all about you.” 

“ Oh, Aunt Penniman !” murmured Catherine, as 
if this had been a breach of trust. “ He is a perfect 
stranger — we don’t know him.” There was infinite 
modesty in the poor girl’s “ we.” 

Aunt Penniman, however, took no account of it ; 
she spoke even with a touch of acrimony. “My 
dear Catherine, you know very well that you ad- 
mire him.” 


42 

Oil, Aunt Penniman !” Catherine could only 
murmur again. It might very well be that she 
admired him — though this did not seem to her a 
thing to talk about. But that this brilliant stran- 
ger — this sudden apparition, who had barely heard 
the sound of her voice — took that sort of interest 
in her that was expressed by the romantic phrase of 
which Mrs. Penniman had just made use — this could 
only be a figment of the restless brain of Aunt La- 
vinia, whom every one knew to be a woman of pow- 
erful imagination. 


YI. 

Mrs. Penniman even took for granted at times 
that other people had as much imagination as her- 
self ; so that when, half an hour later, her brother 
came in, she addressed him quite on this principle. 

‘^He has just been here, Austin ; it’s such a pity 
you missed him.” 

‘‘Whom in the world have I missed?” asked the 
Doctor. 

“ Mr. Morris Townsend ; he has made us such a 
delightful visit.” 

“ And who in the world is Mr. Morris Townsend ?” 

“ Aunt Penniman means the gentleman — the gen- 
tleman whose name I couldn’t remember,” said Cath- 
erine. 

“ The gentleman at Elizabeth’s party who was so 
struck with Catherine,” Mrs. Penniman added. 

“Oh, his name is Morris Townsend, is it? And 
did he come here to propose to you?” 


WASHINGTON SQUARE. 


43 


“ Oil, father !” murmured the girl for an answer, 
turning away to the window, where the dusk had 
deepened to darkness. 

‘‘I hope he won’t do that without your permis- 
sion,” said Mrs. Peniiiman, very graciously. 

“ After all, my dear, he seems to have yours,” her 
brother answered. 

Lavinia simpered, as if this might not be quite 
enough, and Catherine, with her forehead touching 
the window-panes, listened to this exchange of epi- 
grams as reservedly as if they had not each been a 
pin-prick in her own destiny. 

‘‘The next time he comes,” the Doctor added, 
“you had better call me. He might like to see 
me.” 

Morris Townsend came again some five days after- 
ward ; but Doctor Sloper was not called, as he was 
absent from home at the time. Catherine was with 
her aunt when the young man’s name was brought 
in, and Mrs. Penniman, effacing herself and protest- 
ing, made a great point of her niece’s going into the 
drawing-room alone. 

“ This time it’s for you — for you only,” she said. 
“ Before, when he talked to me, it w^as only prelim- 
inary — it was to gain my confidence. Literally, my 
dear, I should not have the courage to show" myself 
to-day.” 

And this was perfectly true. Mrs. Penniman was 
not a brave woman, and Morris Townsend had struck 
her as a young man of great force of character, and 
of remarkable powders of satire — a keen, resolute, 
brilliant nature, with which one must exercise a 
great deal of tact. She said to herself that he was 


44 


WASHINGTON SQUARE. 


“imperious,” and she liked the word and the idea. 
She was not the least jealous of her niece, and she 
had been perfectly happy with Mr. Penniman, but 
in the bottom of her heart she permitted herself the 
observation, “ That’s the sort of husband I should 
have had !” He was certainly much more imperi- 
ous — she ended by calling it imperial — than Mr. 
Penniman. 

So Catherine saw Mr. Townsend alone, and her 
aunt did not come in even at the end of the visit. 
The visit was a long one ; he sat there, in the front 
parlor, in the biggest arm-chair, for more than an 
hour. He seemed more at home this time — more 
familiar ; lounging a little in the chair, slapping a 
cushion that was near him with his stick, and look- 
ing round the room a good deal, and at the objects 
it contained, as well as at Catherine ; whom, how- 
ever, he also contemplated freely. There was a 
smile of respectful devotion in his handsome eyes 
which seemed to Catherine almost solemnly beauti- 
ful ; it made her think of a young knight in a poem. 
His talk, however, was not particularly knightly ; it 
was light and easy and friendly ; it took a practical 
turn, and he asked a number of questions about her- 
self — what were her tastes — if she liked this and that 
— what were her habits. He said to her, with his 
charming smile, “ Tell me about yourself ; give me 
a little sketch.” Catherine had very little to tell, 
and she had no talent for sketching ; but before he 
went she had confided to him that she had a secret 
passion for the theatre, which had been but scantily 
gratified, and a taste for operatic music — that of Bel- 
lini and Donizetti, in especial (it must be remembered. 


WASHINGTON SQUARE. 


45 


in extenuation of this primitive young woman, tliat 
she held these opinions in an age of general dark- 
ness) — which she rarely had an occasion to hear, ex- 
cept on the hand-organ. She confessed that she was 
not particularly fond of literature. Morris Towns- 
end agreed with her that books were tiresome 
things; only, as he said, you had to read a good 
many before you found it out. He had been to 
places that people had written books about, and they 
were not a bit like the descriptions. To see for your- 
self — that was the great thing ; he always tried to see 
for himself. He had seen all the principal actors — 
he had been to all the best theatres in London and 
Paris. But the actors were always like the authors 
— they always exaggerated. He liked everything to 
be natural. Suddenly he stopped, looking at Catli- 
erine with his smile. 

“ That’s what I like you for ; you are so natural. 
Excuse me,” he added; “you see I am natural my- 
self.” 

And before she had time to think whether she 
excused him or not — which afterward, at leisure, she 
became conscious that she did — he began to talk 
about music, and to say that it was his greatest pleas- 
ure in life. He had heard all the great singers in 
Paris and London — Pasta and Kubini and Lablache 
— and when you had done that, you could say that 
you knew what singing was. 

“ I sing a little myself,” he said ; “ some day I 
will show you. Hot to-day, but some other time.” 

And then he got up to go. He had omitted, by 
accident, to say that he would sing to her if .she 
would play to him. He thought of this after he 


46 


WASHINGTON SQUARE. 


got into the street ; but he might have spared his 
compunction, for Catherine had not noticed the lapse. 
She was thinking only that “ some other time ” had 
a delightful sound ; it seemed to spread itself over 
the future. 

This was all the more reason, however, though 
she was ashamed and uncomfortable, why she should 
tell her father that Mr. Morris Townsend had called 
again. She announced the fact abruptly, almost 
violently, as soon as the Doctor came into the 
house ; and having done so — it was her duty — she 
took measures to leave the room. But she could 
not leave it fast enough ; her father stopped her 
just as she reached the door. 

‘‘Well, my dear, did he propose to you to-day?” 
the Doctor asked. 

This was just what she had been afraid he would 
say ; and yet she had no answer ready. Of course 
she w’ould have liked to take it as a joke — as her 
father must have meant it ; and yet she would have 
liked also, in denying it, to be a little positive, a lit- 
tle sharp, so that he would perhaps not ask the ques- 
tion again. She didn’t like it — it made her unhap- 
py. But Catherine could never be sharp; and for 
a moment she only stood, with her hand on the door- 
knob, looking at her satiric parent, and giving a 
little laugh. 

“Decidedly,” said the Doctor to himself, “my 
daughter is not brilliant !” 

But he had no sooner made this reflection than 
Catherine found something ; she had decided, on the 
whole, to take the thing as a joke. 

“ Perhaps he will do it the next time,” she ex- 


WASHINGTON SQUARE. 47 

claimed, with a repetition of her laugh ; and she 
quickly got out of the room. 

The Doctor stood staring ; he wondered whether 
his daughter were serious. Catherine went straight 
to her own room, and by the time she reached it 
she bethought herself that there was something else 
— something better — she might have said. She al- 
most wished, now, that her father would ask his 
question again, so that she might reply, Oh yes, 
Mr. Morris Townsend proposed to me, and I refused 
him.” 

The Doctor, however, began to , put his questions 
elsewhere ; it naturally having occurred to him that 
he ought to inform himself properly about this 
handsome young man, who had formed the habit of 
running in and out of his house. He addressed 
himself to the elder of his sisters, Mrs. Almond — 
not going to her for the purpose ; there was no such 
hurry as that; but having made a note of the mat- 
ter for the first opportunity. The Doctor was never 
eager, never impatient or nervous ; but he made 
notes of everything, and he regularly consulted his 
notes. , Among them the information he obtained 
from Mrs. Almond about Morris Townsend took its 
place. 

“ Lavinia has already been to ask me,” she said. 
“ Lavinia is most excited ; I don’t understand it. 
It’s not, after all, Lavinia that the young man is 
supposed to have designs upon. She is very pecul- 
iar.” 

‘‘Ah, my dear,” the Doctor replied, “she has not 
lived with me these twelve years without my finding 
it out.” 


48 


WASHINGTON SQUARE. 


“ She has got such an artificial mind,” said Mrs. 
Almond, who always enjoyed an opportunity to dis- 
cuss Lavinia’s peculiarities with her brother. “ She 
didn’t want me to tell you that she had asked me 
about Mr. Townsend ; but I told her I would. She 
always wants to conceal everything.” 

“And yet at moments no one blurts things out 
with such crudity. She is like a revolving light- 
house — pitch darkness alternating with a dazzling 
brilliancy! But what did you tell her?” the Doctor 
asked. 

“What I tell you — that I know very little of 
him.” 

“Lavinia must have been disappointed at that,” 
said the Doctor; “she would prefer him to have 
been guilty of some romantic crime. However, we 
must make the best of people. They tell me our 
gentleman is the cousin of the little boy to w'hom 
you are about to intrust the future of your little 
girl.” 

“Arthur is not a little boy ; he is a very old man ; 
you and I will never be so old 1 He is a distant 
relation of Lavinia’s The name is the same, 

but I am given to understand that there are Towns- 
ends and Townsends. So Arthur’s mother tells me ; 
she talked about ‘branches’ — younger branches, 
elder branches, inferior branches — as if it were a 
royal house. Arthur, it appears, is of the reigning 
line, but poor Lavinia’s young man is not. Beyond 
this, Arthur’s mother knows very little about him ; 
she has only a vague story that he has been ‘ wild.’ 
But I know his sister a little, and she is a very nice 
wmman. Her name is Mrs. Montgomery ; she is a 


WASHINGTON SQUARE. 


49 


widow, with a little property and five children. She 
lives in the Second Avenue.” 

What does Mrs. Montgomery say about him ?” 

“ That he has talents by which he might distin- 
guish himself.” 

“ Only he is lazy, eh ?” 

“ She doesn’t say so.” 

“ That’s family pride,” said the Doctor. “ What 
is his profession?” 

“ He hasn’t got any ; he is looking for something. 
I believe he was once in the Havy.” 

‘‘ Once ? What is his age ?” 

“ I suppose he is upward of thirty. He must have 
gone into the Havy very young. I think Arthur 
told me that he inherited a small property — which 
was perhaps the cause of his leaving the Havy — and 
that he spent it all in a few years. He travelled all 
over the world, lived abroad, amused himself. I be- 
lieve it was a kind of system, a theory he had. He 
has lately come back to America with the intention, 
as he tells Arthur, of beginning life in earnest.” 

Is he in earnest about Catherine, then ?” 
don’t see why you should be incredulous,” said 
Mrs. Almond. “ It seems to me that you have never 
done Catherine justice. You must remember that 
she has the prospect of thirty thousand a year.” 

The Doctor looked at his sister a moment, and 
then, with lightest touch of bitterness, ‘‘You at least 
appreciate her,” he said. 

Mrs. Almond blushed. 

“ I don’t mean that is her only merit ; I simply 
mean that it is a great one. A great many young 
men think so; and you appear to me never to have 
4 


50 


WASHINGTON SQUARE. 


been properly aware of that. You have always had 
a little way of alluding to her as an unmarriageable 
girl.” 

“ My allusions are as kind as yours, Elizabeth,” 
said the Doctor, frankly. “How many suitors has 
Catherine had, with all her expectations — how much 
attention has she ever received? Catherine is not 
unmarriageable, but she is absolutely unattractive. 
What other reason is there for Lavinia being so 
charmed with the idea that there is a lover in the 
house ? There has never been one before, and La- 
vinia, with her sensitive, sympathetic nature, is not 
used to the idea. It affects her imagination. I must 
do the young men of Hew York the justice to say 
that they strike me as very disinterested. They 
prefer pretty girls — lively girls — girls like your own. 
Catherine is neither pretty nor lively.” 

“ Catherine does very well ; she has a style of her 
own — which is more than my poor Marian has, who 
has no style at all,” said Mrs. Almond. “ The reason 
Catherine has received so little attention, is that she 
seems to all the young men to be older than them- 
selves. She is so large, and she dresses so richly. 
They are rather afraid of her, I think ; she looks as 
if she had been married already, and you know they 
don’t like married women. And if our young men 
appear disinterested,” the Doctor’s wiser sister went 
on, “ it is because they marry, as a general thing, so 
young — before twenty-five, at the age of innocence 
and sincerity — before the age of calculation. If they 
only waited a little, Catherine would fare better.” 

“As a calculation? Thank you very much,” said 
the Doctor. 


WASHINGTON SQUARE. 


51 


“Wait till some intelligent man of forty comes 
along, and he will be delighted with Catherine,” Mrs. 
Almond continued. 

“ Mr. Townsend is not old enough, then ? His mo- 
tives may be pure.” 

“ It is very possible that his motives are pure ; I 
should be very sorry to take the contrary for grant- 
ed. Lavinia is sure of it; and, as he is a very pre- 
possessing youth, you might give him the benefit of 
the doubt.” 

Doctor Sloper reflected a moment. 

“What are his present means of subsistence?” 

“ I have no idea. He lives, as I say, with his sister.” 

“ A widow, with flve children ? Do you mean he 
lives ujpon her?” 

Mrs. Almond got up, and with a certain impa- 
tience, “ Had you not better ask Mrs. Montgomery 
herself?” she inquired. 

“ Perhaps I may come to that,” said the Doctor. 
“ Did you say the Second Avenue ?” He made a 
note of the Second Avenue. 


52 


WASHINGTON SQUARE. 


YII. 



He was, however, by no means so much in earnest 
as this might seem to indicate ; and, indeed, he was 
more than anything else amused with the whole sit- 
uation. He was not in the least in a state of tension 
or of vigilance with regard to Catherine’s prospects ; 
he was even on his guard against the ridicule that 
might attach itself to tlie spectacle of a house 



WASHINGTON SQUARE. 


53 


thrown into agitation by its daughter and heiress 
receiving attentions unprecedented in its annals. 
More than this, he went so far as to promise him- 
self some entertainment from the little drama — if 
drama it was — of which Mrs. Penniman desired to 
represent the ingenious Mr. Townsend as the hero. 
He had no intention, as yet, of regulating the denoue 
ment. He was perfectly willing, as Elizabeth had 
suggested, to give the young man the benefit of ev- 
ery doubt. There was no great danger in it ; for 
Catherine, at the age of twenty-two, was, after all, a 
rather mature blossom, such as could be plucked from 
the stem only by a vigorous jerk. The fact that 
Morris Townsend w^as poor, was not of necessity 
against him ; the Doctor had never made up his 
mind that his daughter should marry a rich man. 
The fortune she would inherit struck him as a very 
sufficient provision for two reasonable persons, and 
if a penniless swain who could give a good account 
of himself should enter the lists, he should be judged 
quite upon his personal merits. There were other 
things besides. The Doctor thought it very vulgar 
to be precipitate in accusing people of mercenary 
motives, inasmuch as his door had as yet not been 
in the least besieged by fortune-hunters ; and, lastljq 
he was very curious to see whether Catherine might 
really be loved for her moral worth. He smiled as 
he reflected that poor Mr. Townsend had been only 
twice to the house, and he said to Mrs. Penniman 
that the next time he should come she must ask him 
to dinner. 

He came very soon again, and Mrs. Penniman had 
of course great pleasure in executing this mission. 


54 


WASHINGTON SQUARE. 


Morris Townsend accepted her invitation with equal 
good grace, and the dinner took place a few days 
later. The Doctor had said to himself, justly 
enough, that they must not have the young man 
alone ; this would partake too much of the nature of 
encouragement. So two or three other persons were 
invited ; but Morris Townsend, though he was by 
no means the ostensible, was the real occasion of the 
feast. There is every reason to suppose that he de- 
sired to make a good impression ; and if he fell short 
of this result, it was not for want of a good deal of 
intelligent effort. The Doctor talked to him very 
little during dinner ; but he observed him attentive- 
ly, and after the ladies had gone out he pushed him 
the wine and asked him several questions. Morris 
was not a young man who needed to be pressed, and 
he found quite enough encouragement in the supe- 
rior quality of the claret. The Doctor’s wine was 
admirable, and it may be communicated to the read- 
er that while he sipped it Morris reflected that a cel- 
larful of good liquor — there was evidently a cellar- 
fu.1 here — would be a most attractive idiosyncrasy 
in a father-in-law. The Doctor was struck with his 
appreciative guest ; he saw that he was not a com- 
monplace young man. ‘‘ He has ability,” said Cathe- 
rine’s father, “ decided ability ; he has a very good 
head if he chooses to use it. And he is uncommon- 
ly well turned out; quite the sort of figure that 
pleases the ladies ; but I don’t think I like him.” 
The Doctor, however, kept his reflections to himself, 
and talked to his visitors about foreign lands, con- 
cerning which Morris offered him more information 
than he was ready, as he mentally phrased it, to 


WASHINGTON SQUARE. 


55 


swallow. Doctor Sloper had travelled but little, and 
he took the liberty of not believing everything that 
his talkative guest narrated. He prided himself on 
being something of a physiognomist ; and while the 
young man, chatting with easy assurance, puffed his 
cigar and filled his glass again, the Doctor sat with 
his eyes quietly fixed on his bright, expressive face. 

He has the assurance of the devil himself !” said 
Morris’s host ; ‘‘ I don’t think I ever saw such assur- 
ance. And his powers of invention are most re- 
markable. He is very knowing ; they were not so 
knowing as that in my time. And a good head, did 
I say? I should think so — after a bottle of Madeira, 
and a bottle and a half of claret !” 

After dinner Morris Townsend went and stood 
before Catherine, who was standing before the fire 
in her red satin gown. 

“ He doesn’t like me — he doesn’t like me at all,” 
said the young man. 

Who doesn’t lil^e you ?” asked Catherine. 

Your father ; extraordinary man !” 

“ I don’t see how you know,” said Catherine, 
blushing. 

“ I feel ; I am very quick to feel.” 

Perhaps you are mistaken.” 

“ Ah, well ! you ask him, and you will see.” 

I w'ould rather not ask him, if there is any dan- 
ger of his saying what you think.” 

Morris looked at her with an air of mock mel- 
ancholy. 

‘‘ It 'wouldn’t give you any pleasure to contradict 
him ?” 

I never contradict him,” said Catherine. 


56 


WASHINGTON SQUARE. 


‘‘ Will you hear me abused without opening your 
lips in my defence 

“ My father won’t abuse you. He doesn’t know 
you enough.” 

Morris Townsend gave a loud laugh, and Cathe- 
rine began to blush again. 

“ I shall never mention you,” she said, to take 
refuge from her confusion. 

“ That is very well ; but it is not quite what I 
should have liked you to say. I should have liked 
you to say, ‘ If my father doesn’t think well of you, 
what does it matter?’ ” 

“ Ah, but it would matter ; I couldn’t say that !” 
the girl exclaimed. 

He looked at her for a moment, smiling a little ; 
and the Doctor, if he had been watching him just 
then, would have seen a gleam of tine impatience in 
the sociable softness of his eye. But there was no im- 
patience in his rejoinder — none, at least, save what was 
expressed in a little appealing sigh- “Ah, well ! then 
I must not give up the hope of bringing him round.” 

He expressed it more frankly to Mrs. Penniman 
later in the evening. But before that he sung two 
or three songs at Catherine’s timid request ; not that 
he flattered himself that this would help to bring 
her father round. He had a sweet light tenor voice, 
and, when he had flnished, every one made some ex- 
clamation — every one, that is, save Catherine, who 
remained intensely silent. Mrs. Penniman declared 
that his manner of singing was “ most artistic,” and 
Doctor Sloper said it was “very taking — very tak- 
ing, indeed speaking loudly and distinctly, but 
with a certain dryness. 


HE HAD A SWEET, LIGHT, TENOR VOICE 








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WASHINGTON SQUARE. 


59 


He doesn’t like me — he doesn’t like me at all,” 
said Morris Townsend, addressing the aunt in the 
same manner as he had done the niece. ‘‘ He thinks 
I am all wrong.” 

Unlike her niece, Mrs. Penniman asked for no ex- 
planation. She only smiled very sweetly, as if she 
understood everything ; and, unlike Catherine too, 
she made no attempt to contradict him. “Pray, 
what does it matter ?” she murmured, softly. 

“Ah, you say the right thing!” said Morris, great- 
ly to the gratification of Mrs. Penniman, who prided 
herself on always saying the right thing. 

The Doctor, the next time he saw his sister Eliza- 
beth, let her know that he had made the acquaint- 
ance of Lavinia’s 

“Physically,” he said, “he’s uncommonly well set 
up. As an anatomist, it is really a pleasure to me 
to see such a beautiful structure; although, if peo- 
ple were all like him, I suppose there would be very 
little need for doctors.” 

“ Don’t you see anything in people but their 
bones?” Mrs. Almond rejoined. “What do you 
think of him as a father ?” 

“As a father? Thank Heaven, I am not his 
father !” . 

“ No ; but you are Catherine’s. Lavinia tells me 
she is in love.” 

“ She must get over it. He is not a gentleman.” 

“ Ah, take care 1 Kemember that he is a branch 
of the Townsends.” 

“ He is not what I call a gentleman ; he has not 
the soul of one. He is extremely insinuating; but 
it’s a vulgar nature. I saw through it in a minute. 


60 


WASHINGTON SQUAEE. 


He is altogether too familiar;— I hate familiarity. 
He is a plausible coxcomb.” 

“Ah, well,” said Mrs. Almond, “ if you make up 
your mind so easily, it’s a great advantage.” 

“ I don’t make up my mind easily. What I tell 
you is the result of thirty years of observation; 
and in order to be able to form that judgment in a 
single evening, I have had to spend a lifetime in 
study.” 

“ Yery possibly you are right. But the thing is 
for Catherine to see it.” 

“ I will present her with a pair of spectacles !” 
said the Doctor. 


YIII. 

If it were true that she was in love, she was cer- 
tainly very quiet about it; but the Doctor was of 
course prepared to admit that her quietness might 
mean volumes. She had told Morris Townsend that 
she would not mention him to her father, and she 
saw no reason to retract this vow of discretion. It 
was no more than decently civil, of course, that, after 
having dined in Washington Square, Morris should 
call there again ; and it was no more than natural 
that, having been kindly received on this occasion, 
he should continue to present himself. He had had 
plenty of leisure on his hands ; and thirty years ago, 
in New York, a young man of leisure had reason to 
be thankful for aids to self-oblivion. Catherine said 
nothing to her father about these visits, though they 
had rapidly become the most important, the most 


WASHINGTON SQUAKE. 


61 


absorbing thing in her life. The girl was very hap- 
py. She knew not as yet what would come of it ; 
but the present had suddenly grown rich and sol- 
emn. If she had been told she was in love, she 
would have been a good deal surprised ; for she had 
an idea that love was an eager and exacting passion, 
and her own heart was tilled in these days with the 
impulse of self-effacement and sacrifice. Whenever 
Morris Townsend had left the house, her imagina- 
tion projected itself, with all its strength, into the 
idea of his soon coming back; but if she had been 
told at such a moment that he would not return for 
a year, or even that he would never return, she would 
not have complained nor rebelled, but would have 
humbly accepted the decree, and sought for consola- 
tion in thinking over the times she had already seen 
him, the words he had spoken, the sound of his 
voice, of his tread, the expression of his face. Love 
demands certain things as a right ; but Catherine 
had no sense of her rights; she had only a con- 
sciousness of immense and unexpected favors. Her 
very gratitude for these things had hushed itself; 
for it seemed to her that there would be something 
of impudence in making a festival of her secret. 
Her father suspected Morris Townsend’s visits, and 
noted her reserve. She seemed to beg pardon for 
it ; she looked at him constantly in silence, as if she 
meant to say that she said nothing because she was 
afraid of irritating him. But the poor girl’s dumb 
eloquence irritated him more than anything else 
would have done, and he caught himself murmuring 
more than once that it was a grievous pity his only 
child was a simpleton. His murmurs, however, were 


62 


WASHINGTON SQUARE. 


inaudible; and for awhile he said nothing to any 
one. He would have liked to know exactly how 
often young Townsend came ; but he had deter- 
mined to ask no questions of the girl herself — to 
say nothing more to her that would show that he 
watched her. The Doctor had a great idea of being 
largely just: he wished to leave his daughter her 
liberty, and interfere only when the danger should 
be proved. It was not in his manner to obtain in- 
formation by indirect methods, and it never even oc- 
curred to him to question the servants. As for La- 
vinia, he hated to talk to her about the matter ; she 
annoyed him with her mock romanticism.' But he 
had to come to this. Mrs. Penniman’s convictions 
as regards the relations of her niece and the clever 
young visitor, who saved appearances by coming os- 
tensibly for both the ladies — Mrs. Penniman’s con- 
victions had passed into a riper and richer phase. 
There was to be no crudity in Mrs. Penniman’s treat- 
ment of the situation ; she had become as uncom- 
municative as Catherine herself. She was tasting 

O 

of the sweets of concealment ; she had taken up the 
line of mystery. “ She would be enchanted to be 
able to prove to herself that she is persecuted,” said 
the Doctor ; and when at last he questioned her, he 
was sure she would contrive to extract from his 
words a pretext for this belief. 

“ Be so good as to let me know what is going on 
in the house,” he said to her, in a tone which, under 
the circumstances, he himself deemed genial. 

“Going on, Austin?” Mrs. Penniman exclaimed. 
“ Why, I am sure I don’t know. I believe that last 
night the old gray cat had kittens.” 


WASHINGTON SQUARE. 


63 


“At her age?” said the Doctor. “The idea is 
startling — almost shocking. Be so good as to see 
that they are all drowned. Bat what else has hap- 
pened ?” 

“ Ah, the dear little kittens !” cried Mrs. Penni- 
man. “I wouldn’t have them drowned for the 
world !” 

Her brother puffed his cigar a few moments in 
silence. “Your sympathy with kittens, Lavinia,” 
he presently resumed, “arises from a feline element 
in your own character.” 

“ Cats are very graceful, and very clean,” said Mrs. 
Penniman, smiling. 

“And very stealthy. You are the embodiment 
both of grace and of neatness ; but you are wanting 
in frankness.” 

“You certainly are not, dear brother.” 

“ I don’t pretend to be graceful, though I try to 
be neat. Why haven’t you let me know that Mr. 
Morris Townsend is coming to the house four times 
a week ?” 

Mrs. Penniman lifted her eyebrows. “ Four times 
a week !” 

“ Three times, then, or five times, if you prefer it. 
I am away all day, and I see nothing. But when 
such things happen, you should let me know.” 

Mrs. Penniman, with her eyebrows still raised, re- 
flected intently. “Dear Austin,” she said at last, 
“ I am incapable of betraying a confidence. I would 
rather suffer anything.” 

“ Hever fear ; you shall not suffer. To whose con- 
fidence is it you allude ? Has Catherine made you 
take a vow of eternal secrecy ?” 


WASHINGTON SQUARE. 


64 


“By no means. Catherine has not told me as 
much as she might. She has not been very trust- 
ful.” 

“ It is the young man, then, who has made you his 
confidante ? Allow me to say that it is extremely in- 
discreet of you to form secret alliances with young 
men ; you don’t know where they may lead you.” 

“ I don’t know what you mean by an alliance,” 
said Mrs. Penniman. “I take a great interest in 
Mr. Townsend ; I won’t conceal that. But that’s 
all.” 

“ Under the circumstances, that is quite enough. 
What is the source of your interest in Mr. Towns- 
end ?” 

“ Why,” said Mrs. Penniman, musing, and then 
breaking into her smile, “ that he is so interesting !” 

The Doctor felt that he had need of his patience. 
“And what makes him interesting? — his good 
looks?” 

“His misfortunes, Austin.” 

“Ah, he has had misfortunes? That, of course, 
is always interesting. Are you at liberty to men- 
tion a few of Mr. Townsend’s?” 

“I don’t know that he would like it,” said Mrs. 
Penniman. “He has told me a great deal about 
himself — he has told me, in fact, his w^hole history. 
But I don’t think I ought to repeat those things. 
He would tell them to you, I am sure, if he thought 
you would listen to him kindly. With kindness you 
may do anything with him.” 

The Doctor gave a laugh. “ I shall request him 
very kindly, then, to leave Catherine alone.” 

“Ah!” said Mrs. Penniman, shaking her forefin- 


WASHINGTON SQUARE. 


65 


ger at her brother, with her little finger turned out, 
“ Catherine has probably said something to him kind- 
er than that !” 

Said that she loved him ? — do you mean that 

Mrs. Pennimau fixed her eyes on the fioor. “As 
I tell you, Austin, she doesn’t confide in me.” 

“You have an opinion, I suppose, all the same. 
It is that I ask you for; though I don’t conceal 
from you that I shall not regard it as conclusive.” 

Mrs. Penniman’s gaze continued to rest on the 
carpet ; but at last she lifted it, and then her broth- 
er thought it very expressive. “I think Catherine 
is very happy ; that is all I can say.” 

“ Townsend is trying to marry her — is that what 
you mean ?” 

“ He is greatly interested in her.” 

“ He finds her such an attractive girl ?” 

“ Catherine has a lovely nature, Austin,” said Mrs. 
Penniman, “and Mr. Townsend has had the intelli- 
gence to discover that.” 

“With a little help from you, I suppose. My 
dear Lavinia,” cried the Doctor, “you are an admi- 
rable aunt !” 

“ So Mr. Townsend says,” observed Lavinia, smil- 
ing. 

“Do you think he is sincere?” asked her brother. 

“ In saying that ?” 

“ No ; that’s of course. But in his admiration for 
Catherine?” 

“Deeply sincere. He has said to me the most 
appreciative, the most charming things about her. 
He would say them to you, if he were sure you 
vrould listen to him — gently.” 

5 


66 


WASHINGTON SQUARE. 


“I doubt whetlier I can undertake it. He ap- 
pears to require a great deal of gentleness.” 

“ He is a sympathetic, sensitive nature,” said Mrs. 
Penniman. 

Her brother pulfed his cigar again in silence. 
‘‘These delicate qualities have survived his vicissi- 
tudes, eh ? All this while you haven’t told me about 
his misfortunes.” 

“ It is a long story,” said Mrs. Penniman, “ and I 
regard it as a sacred trust. But I suppose there is 
no objection to my saying that he has been wild — 
he frankly confesses that. But he has paid for it.” 

“ That’s what has impoverished him, eh ?” 

“I don’t mean simply in money. He is very 
much alone in the world.” 

“Do you mean that he has behaved so badly that 
his friends have given him up?” 

“ He has had false friends, who have deceived and 
betrayed him.” 

“ He seems to have some good ones too. He has 
a devoted sister, and half a dozen nephews and 
nieces.” 

Mrs. Penniman was silent a minute. “ The neph- 
ews and nieces are children, and the sister is not a 
very attractive person.” 

“I hope he doesn’t abuse her to you,” said the 
Doctor ; “ for I am told he lives upon her.” 

“ Lives upon her ?” 

“ Lives with her, and does nothing for himself ; 
it is about the same thing.” 

“ He is looking for a position most earnestly,” said 
Mrs. Penniman. “ He hopes every day to find one.” 

“ Precisely. He is looking for it here — over there 


WASHINGTON SQUARE. 

in the front parlor. The position of husband of a 
weak-minded woman wdth a large fortune would 
suit him to perfection !” 

Mrs. Penniman was truly amiable, but she now 
gave signs of temper. She rose with much anima- 
tion, and stood for a moment looking at her brother. 
‘‘ My dear Austin,” she remarked, “ if you regard 
Catherine as a weak-minded woman you are particu- 
larly mistaken !” And with this she moved majes- 
tically away. 


IX. 

It was a regular custom with the family in Wash- 
ington Square to go and spend Sunday evening at 
Mrs. Almond’s. On the Sunday after the conversa- 
tion I have just narrated this custom was not in- 
termitted ; and on this occasion, toward the middle 
of the evening. Doctor Sloper found reason to with- 
draw to the library with his brother-in-law, to talk 
over a matter of business. He was absent some 
twenty minutes, and when he came back into the 
circle, which was enlivened by the presence of sev- 
eral friends of the family, he saw that Morris Towns- 
end had come in, and had lost as little time as pos- 
sible in seating himself on a small sofa beside Cathe- 
rine. In the large room, where several different 
groups had been formed, and the hum of voices and 
of laughter was loud, these two young persons might 
confabulate, as the Doctor phrased it to himself, 
without attracting attention. He saw in a moment, 
however, that his daughter was painfully conscious 


WASHINGTON SQUARE. 


of his own observation. She sat motionless, with 
her eyes bent down, staring at her open fan, deeply 
flushed, shrinking together as if to minimize the in- 
discretion of which she confessed herself guilty. 

The Doctor almost pitied her. Poor Catherine 
was not defiant ; she had no genius for bravado, and 
as she felt that her father viewed her companion’s 
attentions with an unsympathizing eye, there was 
nothing but discomfort for her in the accident of 
seeming to challenge him. The Doctor felt, indeed, 
so sorry for her that he turned away, to spare her 
the sense of being watched ; and he was so intelli- 
gent a man that, in his thoughts, he rendered a sort 
of poetic justice to her situation. 

“It must be deucedly pleasant for a plain, inani- 
mate girl like that to have a beautiful young fellow 
come and sit down beside her, and whisper to her 
that he is her slave — if that is what this one whis- 
pers. ISTo wonder she likes it, and that she thinks 
me a cruel tyrant ; which of course she does, though 
she is afraid — she hasn’t the animation necessary — 
to admit it to herself. Poor old Catherine !” mused 
the Doctor; “I verily believe she is capable of de- 
fending me when Townsend abuses me !” 

And the force of this reflection, for the moment, 
was such in making him feel the natural opposition 
between his point of view and that of an infatuated 
child, that he said to himself that he was perhaps 
after all taking things too hard, and crying out be- 
fore he was hurt. He must not condemn Morris 
Townsend unheard. He had a great aversion to 
taking things too hard ; he thought that half the 
discomfort and many of the disappointments of life 


WASHINGTON SQUARE. 


69 


come from it ; and for an instant he asked himself 
whether, possibly, he did not appear ridiculous to 
this intelligent young man, whose private percep- 
tion of incongruities he suspected of being keen. 
At the end of a quarter of an hour Catherine had 
got rid of him, and Townsend was now standing be- 
fore the fireplace in conversation with Mrs. Almond. 

‘‘We will try him again,” said the Doctor. And 
he crossed the room and joined his sister and her 
companion, making her a sign that she should leave 
the young man to him. She presently did so, while 
Morris looked at him, smiling, without a sign of 
evasiveness in his affable eye. 

“ He’s amazingly conceited !” thought the Doctor ; 
and then he said, aloud, “ I am told you are looking 
out for a position.” 

“ Oh, a position is more than I should presume 
to call it,” Morris Townsend answered. “ That 
sounds so fine. I should like some quiet work — 
something to turn an honest penny.” 

“ What sort of thing should you prefer ?” 

“ Do you mean what am I fit for? Very little, I 
am afraid. I have nothing but my good right arm, 
as they say in the melodramas.” 

“ You are too modest,” said the Doctor. “ In ad- 
dition to your good right arm you have your subtle 
brain. I know nothing of you but what I see ; but 
I see by your physiognomy that you are extremely 
intelligent.” 

“ Ah,” Townsend murmured, “ I don’t know what 
to answer when you say that. You advise me, then, 
not to despair ?” 

And he looked at his interlocutor as if the ques- 


70 


WASHINGTON SQUARE. 


tion might have a double meaning. The Doctor 
caught the look and weighed it a moment before he 
replied. “I should be very sorry to admit that a 
robust and well-disposed young man need ever de- 
spair. If he doesn’t succeed in one thing, he can 
try another. Only, I should add, he should choose 
his line with discretion.” 

“ Ah, yes, with discretion,” Morris Townsend re- 
peated, sympathetically. “Well, I have been indis- 
creet, formerly ; but I think I have got over it. I 
am very steady now.” And he stood a moment, 
looking down at his remarkably neat shoes. Then 
at last, “Were you kindly intending to propose 
something for my advantage?” he inquired, looking 
up and smiling. 

“D — n his impudence!” the Doctor exclaimed, 
privately. But in a moment he reflected that he 
himself had, after all, touched first upon this delicate 
point, and that his words might have been construed 
as an offer of assistance. “ I have no particular pro- 
posal to make,” he presently said ; “ but it occurred 
to me to let you know that I have you in my mind. 
Sometimes one hears of opportunities. For in- 
stance, should you object to leaving 'New York — to 
going to a distance ?” 

“ I am afraid I shouldn’t be able to manage that. 

• I must seek my fortune here or nowhere. You see,” 
added Morris Townsend, “ I have ties — I have re- 
sponsibilities here. I have a sister, a widow, from 
whom I have been separated for a long time, and to 
whom I am almost everything. I shouldn’t like to 
say to her that I must leave her. She rather de- 
pends upon me, you see.” 


WASHINGTON SQUARE. 


71 


“ All, that’s very proper ; family feeling is very 
proper,” said Doctor Sloper. “ I often think there 
is not enough of it in our city. I think I have 
heard of your sister.” 

It is possible, but I rather doubt it; she lives so 
very quietly.” 

“As quietly, you mean,” the Doctor went on, with 
a short laugh, “ as a lady may do who has several 
young children.” 

“ Ah, my little nephews and nieces — that’s the very 
point ! I am helping to bring them up,” said Mor- 
ris Townsend. “I am a kind of amateur tutor; I 
give them lessons.” 

“ That’s very proper, as I say ; but it is hardly a 
career.” 

“ It won’t make my fortune,” the young man 
confessed. 

“You must not be too much bent on a fortune,” 
said the Doctor. “But I assure you I will keep you 
in mind ; I won’t lose sight of you.” 

“ If my situation becomes desperate I shall per- 
haps take the liberty of reminding you,” Morris re- 
joined, raising his voice a little, with a brighter smile, 
as his interlocutor turned away. 

Before he left the house the Doctor had a few 
words with Mrs. Almond. 

“ I should like to see his sister,” he said. “ What 
do you call her — Mrs. Montgomery ? I should like 
to have a little talk with her.” 

“ I will try and manage it,” Mrs. Almond re- 
sponded. “I will take the first opportunity of in- 
viting her, and you shall come and meet her; 
unless, indeed,” Mrs. Almond added, “ she first 


72 WASHINGTON SQUARE. 

takes it into her head to be sick and to send for 
you.” 

“Ah no, not that ; she must have trouble enough 
without that. But it would have its advantages, for 
then I should see the children. I should like very 
much to see the children.” 

“You are very thorough. Do you want to cate- 
chise them about their uncle ?” 

“ Precisely. Their uncle tells me he has charge 
of their education, that he saves their mother the ex- 
pense of school-bills. I should like to ask them a 
few questions in the commoner branches.” 

“ He certainly has not the cut of a school-mas- 
ter,” Mrs. Almond said to herself a short time after- 
ward, as she saw Morris Townsend in a corner bend- 
ing over her niece, who was seated. 

And there was, indeed, nothing in the young 
man’s discourse at this moment that savored of the 
pedagogue. 

“Will you meet me somewhere to-morrow or 
next day ?” he said, in a low tone, to Catherine. 

“ Meet you ?” she asked, lifting her frightened eyes. 

“ I have something particular to say to you — very 
particular.” 

“ Can’t you come to the house ? Can’t you say it 
there ?” 

Townsend shook his head gloomily. “ I can’t en- 
ter your doors again.” 

“ Oh, Mr. Townsend !” murmured Catherine. She 
trembled as she wondered what had happened — 
whether her father had forbidden it. 

“ I can’t, in self-respect,” said the young man. 
“Your father has insulted me.” 


WASHINGTON SQUARE. 


73 


“ Insulted you ?” 

“ He has taunted me with my poverty.” 

“Oh, you are mistaken — you misunderstood him !” 
Catherine spoke with energy, getting up from her 
chair. 

“Perhaps I am too proud — too sensitive. But 
would you have me otherwise ?” he asked, tenderly. 

“ Where my father is concerned, you must not be 
sure. He is full of goodness,” said Catherine. 

“ He laughed at me for having no position. I 
took it quietly; but only because he belongs to you.” 

“ I don’t know,” said Catherine — “ I don’t know 
what he thinks. I am sure he means to be kind. 
You must not be too proud.” 

“ I will be proud only of you,” Morris answered. 
“Will you meet me in the Square in the afternoon?” 

A great blush on Catherine’s part had been the 
answer to the declaration I have just quoted. She 
turned away, heedless of his question. 

“Will you meet me?” he repeated. “It is very 
quiet there — no one need see ns — toward dusk.” 

“ It is you who are unkind, it is you who laugh, 
when you say such things as that.” 

“ My dear girl !” the young man murmured. 

“ You know how little there is in me to be proud 
of. I am ugly -and stupid.” 

Morris greeted this remark with an ardent mur- 
mur, in which she recognized nothing articulate but 
an assurance that she was his own dearest. 

But she went on. “I am not even — I am not 
even — ” And she paused a moment. 

“You are not what?” 

“ I am not even brave.” 


74 


WASHINGTON SQUARE. 


“ Ab, then, if you are afraid, what shall we do?” 

She hesitated awhile; then at last — “You must 
come to the house,” she said ; “ I am not afraid of 
that.” 

“I would rather it were in the Square,” the 
young man urged. “ You know how empty it is, 
often. No one will see us.” 

“ I don’t care who sees us. But leave me now.” 

He left her resignedly ; he had got what he want- 
ed. Fortunately he w^as ignorant that half an hour 
later, going home with her father, and feeling him 
near, the poor girl, in spite of her sudden declaration 
of courage, began to tremble again. Her father said 
nothing; but she had an idea his eyes were fixed 
upon her in the darkness. Mrs. Pen ni man also was 
silent; Morris Townsend had told her that her niece 
preferred, unromantically, an interview in a chintz- 
covered parlor to a sentimental tryst beside a foun- 
tain sheeted with dead leaves, and she was lost in 
wonderment at the oddity — almost the perversity — 
of the choice. 


X. 

Catherine received the young man the next day 
on the ground she had chosen — amidst the chaste up- 
holstery of a New York drawing-room furnished in 
the fashion of fifty years ago. Morris had swallow- 
ed his pride, and made the effort necessary to cross 
the threshold of her too derisive parent — an act of 
magnanimity which could not fail to render him 
doubly interesting. 


WASHINGTON SQUARE. 


75 


“We must settle something — we must take a 
line,” he declared, passing his hand through his hair 
and giving a glance at the long, narrow mirror which 
adorned the space between the two windows, and 
which had at its base a little gilded bracket covered 
bj a thin slab of white marble, supporting in its turn 
a backgammon-board folded together in the shape 
of two volumes — two shining folios inscribed, in 
greenish-gilt History of England, If Morris 

had been pleased tg describe the master of the house 
as a heartless scoffer, it is because he thought him 
too much on his guard, and this was the easiest way 
to express his own dissatisfaction — a dissatisfaction 
which he had made a point of concealing from the 
Doctor. It will probabl}^ seem to the reader, how- 
ever, that the Doctor’s vigilance was by no means 
excessive, and that these two young people had an 
open field. Their intimacy was now considerable, 
and it may appear that, for a shrinking and retiring 
person, our heroine had been liberal of her favors. 
The young man, within a few days, had made her 
listen to things for which she had not supposed that 
slie was prepared ; having a lively foreboding of 
difficulties, he proceeded to gain as much ground as 
possible in the present. He remembered that fort- 
une favors the brave, and even if he had forgotten 
it, Mrs. Penniman would have remembered it for 
him. Mrs. Penniman delighted of all things in a 
drama, and she flattered herself that a drama would 
now be enacted. Combining as she did the zeal of 
the prompter with the impatience of the spectator, 
she had long since done her utmost to pull up the 
curtain. She, too, expected to figure in the perform- 


76 


WASHINGTON SQUARE. 


ance — to be the confidante, the Chorus, to speak the 
epilogue. It maj even be said that there were 
times when she lost sight altogether of the modest 
heroine of the play in the contemplation of certain 
great scenes which would naturally occur between 
the hero and herself. 

What Morris had told Catherine at last was sim- 
ply that he loved her, or rather adored her. Virtu- 
ally, he had made known as much already — his vis- 
its had been a series of eloquent intimations of it. 
But now he had affirmed it in lover’s vows, and, as a 
memorable sign of it, he had passed his arm round 
the girl’s waist and taken a kiss. This happy certi- 
tude had come sooner than Catherine expected, and 
she had regarded it, very naturally, as a priceless 
treasure. It may even be doubted whether she had 
ever definitely expected to possess it ; she had not 
been waiting for it, and she had never said to her- 
self that at a given moment it must come. As I 
have tried to explain, she was not eager and exact- 
ing ; she took what was given her from day to day ; 
and if the delightful custom of her lover’s visits, 
which yielded her a happiness in which confidence 
and timidity were strangely blended, had suddenly 
come to an end, she would not only not have spoken 
of herself as one of the forsaken, but she would not 
have thought of herself as one of the disappointed. 
After Morris had kissed her, the last time he was 
with her, as a ripe assurance of his devotion, she 
begged him to go away, to leave her alone, to let her 
think. Morris went away, taking another kiss first. 
But Catherine’s meditations had lacked a certain 
coherence. She felt his kisses on her lips and on 


WASHINGTON SQUARE. 


77 


her cheeks for a long time afterward ; the sensation 
was rather an obstacle than an aid to reflection. She 
would have liked to see her situation all clearly be- 
fore her, to make up her mind what she should do 
if, as she feared, her father should tell her that he 
disapproved of Morris Townsend. But all that she 
could see with any vividness was that it was terribly 
strange that any one should disapprove of him ; 
that there must in that case be some mistake, some 
mystery, which in a little while would be set at rest. 
She put off deciding and choosing; before the vi- 
sion of a conflict wdth her father she dropped, her 
eyes and sat motionless, holding her breath and 
waiting. It made her heart beat ; it was intensely 
painful. When Morris kissed her and said these 
things — that also made her heart beat ; but this was 
worse, and it frightened her. ^Nevertheless, to-day, 
when the young man spoke of settling something, 
taking a line, she felt that it was the truth, and she 
answered very simply and without hesitating. 

“We must do our duty,” she said; “we must 
speak to my father. I will dp it to-night ; you must 
do it to-morrow.” 

“ It is very good of you to do it first,” Morris an- 
swered. “ The young man — the happy lover — gen- 
erally does that. But just as you please.” 

It pleased Catherine to think that she should be 
brave for his sake, and in her satisfaction she even 
gave a little smile. “Women have more tact,” she 
said; “they ought to do it first. They are more 
conciliating ; they can persuade better.” 

“You will need all your powers of persuasion. 
But, after all,” Morris added, “you are irresistible.” 


78 


WASHINGTON SQUARE. 


“ Please don’t speak that way — and promise me 
this: To-morrow, when you talk with father, you 
will be very gentle and respectful.” 

‘‘ As much so as possible,” Morris promised. “ It 
won’t be much use, but I shall try. I certainly 
would rather have you easily than have to fight for 
you.” 

Don’t talk about fighting ; we shall not fight.” 

“ Ah, we must be prepared,” Morris rejoined ; 
‘‘ you especially, because for you it must come hard- 
est. Do you know the first thing your father will 
say to you ?” 

No, Morris ; please tell me.” 

“ He will tell you I am mercenary.” 

“ Mercenary !” 

“ It’s a big word, but it means a low thing. It 
means that I am after your money.” 

“ Oh !” murmured Catherine, softly. 

The exclamation was so deprecating and touching 
that Morris indulged in another little demonstration 
of affection. “But he will be sure to say it,” he 
added. 

“ It will be easy to be prepared for that,” Catherine 
said. “ I shall simply say that he is mistaken — that 
other men may be that way, but that you are not.” 

“ You must make a great point of that, for it will 
be his own great point.” 

Catherine looked at her lover a minute, and then 
she said, “ I shall persuade him. But I am glad we 
shall be rich,” she added. 

Morris turned away, looking into the crown of his 
hat. “No, it’s a misfortune,” he said at last. “It 
is from that our difficulty will come.” 


WASHINGTON SQUARE. 


79 


“ Well, if it is the worst misfortune, we are not so 
unhappy. Many people would not think it so bad. 
I will persuade him, and after that we shall be very 
glad we have money.” 

Morris Townsend listened to this robust logic in 
silence. I will leave my defence to you ; it’s a 
charge that a man has to stoop to defend himself 
from.” 

Catherine on her side was silent for awhile ; she 
was looking at him while he looked, with a good 
deal of fixedness, out of the window. “Morris,” 
she said, abruptly, “are you very sure you love me?” 

He turned round, and in a moment he was bend- 
ing over her. “My own dearest, can you doubt it?” 

“ I have only known it five days,” she said ; 
“but now it seems to me as if I could never do 
without it.” 

“ You will never be called upon to try.” And he 
gave a little tender, reassuring laugh. Then, in a 
moment, he added, “ There is something you must 
tell me, too.” She had closed her eyes after the last 
words she uttered, and kept them closed; and at 
this she nodded her head, without opening them. 
“You must tell me,” he went on, “that if your fa- 
ther is dead against me, if he absolutely forbids our 
marriage, you will still be faithful.” 

Catherine opened her eyes, gazing at him, and she 
could give no better promise than what he read 
there. 

“You will cleave to me?” said Morris. “You 
know you are your own mistress — you are of age.” 

“Ah, Morris !” she murmured, for all answer ; or 
rather not for all, for she put her hand into his own. 


80 


WASHINGTON SQUARE. 


He kept it awhile, and presently he kissed her again. 
This is all that need be recorded of their conversa- 
tion ; but Mrs. Penniman, if she had been present, 
would probably have admitted that it was as well it 
had not taken place beside the fountain in Washing- 
ton Square. 


XI. 

Catherine listened for her father when he came 
in that evening, and she heard him go to his study. 
She sat quiet, though her heart was beating fast, for 
nearly half an hour; then she went and knocked 
at his door — a ceremony without which she never 
crossed the threshold of this apartment. On enter- 
ing it now, she found him in his chair beside the 
fire, entertaining himself with a cigar and the even- 
ing paper. 

I have something to say to you,” she began very 
gently; and she sat down in the first place that 
offered. 

‘‘ I shall be very happy to hear it, my dear,” said 
her father. He waited — waited, looking at her — 
while she stared, in a long silence, at the fire. He 
was curious and impatient, for he was sure she was 
going to speak of Morris Townsend ; but he let her 
take her own time, for he was determined to be very 
mild. 

‘‘I am engaged to be married!” Catherine an- 
nounced at last, still staring at the fire. 

The Doctor was startled ; the accomplished fact 
was more than he had expected ; but he betrayed 


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81 


no surprise. “ You do right to tell me,” he simply 
said. ‘‘And who is the happy mortal whom you 
have honored with your choice 

“ Mr. Morris Townsend.” And as she pronounced 
her lover’s name Catherine looked at him. What 
she saw was her father’s still gray eye and his clear- 
cut, definite smile. She contemplated these objects 
for a moment, and then she looked back at the fire ; 
it was much warmer. 

“ When was this arrangement made ?” the Doctor 
asked. 

“ This afternoon — two hours ago.” 

“ Was Mr. Townsend here ?” 

“ Yes, father; in the front-parlor.” She was very 
glad that she was not obliged to tell him that the 
ceremony of their betrothal had taken place out 
there under the bare ailantus-trees. 

“ Is it serious f ’ said the Doctor. 

“Very serious, father.” 

Her father was silent a moment. “ Mr. Towns- 
end ought to have told me.” 

“ He means to tell you to-morrow.” 

“After I know all about it from you? He 
ought to have told me before. Does he think 
I didn’t care, because I left you so much lib- 
erty ?” 

‘‘ Oh no,” said Catherine ; “ he knew you would 
care. And we have been so much obliged to you 
for — for the liberty.” 

The Doctor gave a short laugh. “You might 
have made a better use of it, Catherine.” 

“Please don’t say that, father !” the girl urged, 
softly, fixing her dull and gentle eyes upon him. 

6 


82 


WASHINGTON SQUARE. 


He puffed his cigar awhile, meditatively. You 
have gone very fast,’’ he said, at last. 

“Yes,” Catherine answered, simply ; “I think we 
have.” 

Her father glanced at her an instant, removing his 
eyes from the tire. “ I don’t wonder Mr. Townsend 
likes you ; you are so simple and so good.” 

“ I don’t know why it is ; but he does like me. 
I am sure of that.” 

“ And are you very fond of Mr. Townsend ?” 

“ I like him very much, of course, or I shouldn’t 
consent to marry him.” 

“ But you have known h’im a very short time, my 
dear.” 

“ Oh,” said Catherine, with some eagerness, “ it 
doesn’t take long to like a person — when once you 
begin.” 

“You must have begun very quickly. Was it 
the first time you saw him — that night at your aunt’s 
party ?” 

“ I don’t know, father,” the girl answered. “ I 
can’t tell you about that.” 

“Of course; that’s your own affair. You will 
have observed that I have acted on that principle. 
I have not interfered ; I have left you your liberty ; 
I have remembered that you are no longer a little 
girl — that you have arrived at years of discretion.” 

“ I feel very old — and very wise,” said Catherine, 
smiling faintly. 

“ I am afraid that before long you will feel older 
and wiser yet. I don’t like your engagement.” 

“ Ah !” Catherine exclaimed, softly, getting up 
from her chair. 


WASHINGTON SQUARE. 


83 


“ No, my dear. I am sorry to give you pain ; but 
I don’t like it. You should have consulted me be- 
fore you settled it. I have been too easy with you, 
and I feel as if you had taken advantage of my in- 
dulgence. Most decidedly you should have spoken 
to me first.” 

Catherine hesitated a moment, and then — “ It was 
because I was afraid you wouldn’t like it,” she con- 
fessed. 

‘‘Ah, there it is ! You had a bad conscience.” 

“ No, I have not a bad conscience, father !” the 
girl cried out, with considerable energy. “ Please 
don’t accuse me of anything so dreadful!” These 
words, in fact, represented to her imagination some- 
thing very terrible indeed, something base and cruel, 
which she associated with malefactors and prison- 
ers. “ It was because I was afraid — afraid — ” she 
went on. 

“ If you were afraid, it was because you had been 
foolish.” 

“ I was afraid you didn’t like Mr. Townsend.” 

“ You were quite right. I don’t like him.” 

“ Dear father, you don’t know him,” said Cathe- 
rine, in a voice so timidly argumentative that it 
might have touched him. 

“ Very true ; I don’t know him intimately. But 
I know’ him enough ; I have my impression of him. 
You don’t know him either.” 

She stood before the fire with her hands lightly 
clasped in front of her; and her father, leaning back 
in his chair and looking up at her, made this remark 
with a placidity that might have been irritating. 

I doubt, however, wdiether Catherine was irritated, 


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WASHINGTON SQUARE. 


though she broke into a vehement protest. “ I don’t 
know him ?” she cried. ‘‘ Why, I know him — better 
than I have ever known any one !” 

‘‘You know a part of him — what he has chosen 
to show you. But you don’t know the: rest.” 

“ The rest ? What is the rest 

“ AVhatever it may be, there is sure to be plenty 
of it.” 

“I know whit you mean,” said Catherine, remem- 
bering how Z'lis, had forewarned her. “ You mean 
that he is mercenary.” 

Her father looked up at her still, with his cold, 
quiet, reasonable eye. “ If I meant it, my dear, I 
should say it ! But there is an error I wish partic- 
ularly to avoid — that of rendering Mr. Townsend 
more interesting to you by saying hard things about 
him.” 

“ I won’t think them hard if they are true,” said 
Catherine. 

“ If you don’t, you will be a remarkably sensible 
young woman !” 

“ They will be your reasons, at any rate, and you 
will want me to hear your reasons.” 

The Doctor smiled a little. “Very true. You 
have a perfect right to ask for them.” And he puff- 
ed his cigar a few moments. “Very well, then ; 
without accusing Mr. Townsend of being in love only 
with your fortune — and with the fortune that you 
justly expect — I will say that there is every reason to 
suppose that these good things have entered into his 
calculation more largely than a tender solicitude for 
your happiness strictly requires. There is, of course, 
nothing impossible in an intelligent young man en- 


WASHINGTON SQUARE. 


85 


tertaiiiing a disinterested affection for you. You are 
an honest, amiable girl, and an intelligent young 
man might easily tind it out. But the principal 
thing that we know about this young man — who is, 
indeed, very, intelligent — leads us to suppose that, 
how^ever much he may value your personal merits, 
he values your money more. The principal thing 
we know about him is that he has led a life of dis- 
sipation, and has spent a fortune of his own in doing 
so. That is enough for me, my d I wish you 
to marry a young man with other antecedents — a 
young man who could give positive guarantees. If 
Morris Townsend has spent his own fortune in 
amusing himself, there is every reason to believe 
that he would spend yours.’’ 

The Doctor delivered himself of these remarks 
slowly, deliberately, with occasional pauses and pro- 
longations of accent, which made no great allowance 
for poor Catherine’s suspense as to his conclusion. 
She sat down at last, with her head bent and her 
eyes still fixed upon him ; and strangely enough — I 
hardly know how to tell it — even while she felt that 
what he said went so terribly against her, she ad- 
mired his neatness and nobleness of expression. 
There was something hopeless and oppressive in hav- 
ing to argue with her father ; but she too, on her 
side, must try to be clear. He was so quiet ; he was 
not at all angry ; and she, too, must be quiet. But 
her very effort to be quiet made her tremble. 

“ That is not the principal thing we know about 
him,” she said ; and there was a touch of her tremor 
in her voice. There are other things— many other 
things. He has very high abilities — he wants so 


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WASHINGTON SQUARE. 


much to do something. He is kind, and generous, 
and true,” said poor Catherine, who had not suspect- 
ed hitherto the resources of her eloquence. “And 
his fortune — his fortune that he spent — was very 
small.” 

“All the more reason he shouldn’t have spent it,” 
cried the Doctor, getting up with a laugh. Then, as 
Catherine, who had also risen to her feet again, stood 
there in her rather angular earnestness, wishing so 
much and expressing so little, he drew her toward 
him and kissed her. “ You won’t think me cruel?” 
he said, holding her a moment. 

This question was not reassuring; it seemed to 
Catherine, on the contrary, to suggest possibilities 
which made her feel sick. But she' answered co- 
herently enough, “ Ho, dear father ; because if you 
knew how I feel — and you must know, you know 
everything — you would be so kind, so gentle.” 

“ Yes, I think I know how you feel,” the Doctor 
said. “ I will be very kind — be sure of that. And 
I will see Mr. Townsend to-morrow. Meanw’hile, 
and for the present, be so good as to mention to no 
one that you are engaged.” 


WASHINGTON SQUARE. 


87 


XII. 

On the morrow, in the afternoon, he stayed at 
home, awaiting Mr. Townsend’s call — a proceeding 
by which it appeared to him (justly perhaps, for he 
was a very busy man) that he paid Catherine’s suitor 
great honor, and gave both these young people so 
much the less to complain of. Morris presented 
himself with a countenance sufficiently serene — he 
appeared to have forgotten the “ insult ” for which 
he had solicited Catherine’s sympathy two evenings 
before — and Doctor Sloper lost no time in letting 
him know that he had been prepared for his visit. 

“ Catherine told me yesterday what has been go- 
ing on between you,” he said. “ You must allow 
me to say that it would have been becoming of you 
to give me notice of your intentions before they had 
gone so far.” 

“ I should have done so,” Morris answered, “ if 
you had not had so much the appearance of leaving 
your daughter at liberty. She seems to me quite 
her own mistress.” 

Literally, she is. But she has not emancipated 
herself morally quite so far, I trust, as to choose a 
husband without consulting me. I have left her at 
liberty, but I have not been in the least indifferent. 
The truth is, that your little affair has come to a head 
with a rapidity that surprises me. It was only the 
other day that Catherine made your acquaintance.” 


88 


WASHINGTON SQUARE. 


“ It was not long ago, certainly,” said Morris, with 
great gravity. I admit that we have not been slow 
to — to arrive at an understanding. But that was very 
natural, from the moment we were sure of ourselves 
— and of each other. My interest in Miss Sloper 
began the first time I saw her.” 

‘‘Did it not by chance precede your first meet- 
ing?” the Doctor asked. 

Morris looked at him an instant. “I certainly 
had already heard that she was a charming girl.” 

“A charming girl — that’s what you think her?” 

“Assuredly. Otherwise I should not be sitting 
here.” 

The Doctor meditated a moment. “My dear 
young man,” he said at last, “ you must be very 
susceptible. As Catherine’s father I have, I trust, 
a just and tender appreciation of her many good 
qualities ; but I don’t mind telling you that I have 
never thought of her as a charming girl, and never 
expected any one else to do so.” 

Morris Towmsend received this statement with a 
smile that was not wholly devoid of deference. “ I 
don’t know what I might think of her if I were her 
father. I can’t put myself in that place. I speak 
from my own point of view.” 

“ You speak very well,” said the Doctor ; “ but 
that is not all that is necessary. I told Catherine 
yesterday that I disapproved of her engagement.” 

“ She let me know as much, and I was very sorry 
to hear it. I am greatly disappointed.” And Mor- 
ris sat in silence awhile, looking at the floor. 

“Did you really expect I would say I was de- 
lighted, and throw my daughter into your arms ?” 


WASHINGTON SQUARE. 


89 


Oh no ; I had an idea you didn’t like me.” 

“ What gave you the idea ?” 

“ The fact that I am poor.” 

“ That has a harsh sound,” said the Doctor, “ but 
it is about the truth — speaking of you strictly as a 
son-in-law. Your absence of means, of a profession, 
of visible resources or prospects, places you in a 
category from which it would be imprudent for me 
to select a husband for my daughter, who is a weak 
young woman with a large fortune. In any other 
capacity I am perfectly prepared to like you. As 
a son-in-law, I abominate you.” 

Morris Townsend listened respectfully. “ I don’t 
think Miss Sloper is a weak woman,” he presently 
said. 

“ Of course you must defend her — it’s the least 
you can do. But I have known my child twenty 
years, and you have known her six weeks. Even 
if she were not weak, however, you would still be 
a penniless man.” 

“Ah, yes; that is my weakness! And therefore, 
you mean, I am mercenary — I only want your 
daughter’s money.” 

“ I don’t say that. I am not obliged to say it ; and 
to say it, save under stress of compulsion, would be 
very bad taste. I say simply that you belong to the 
wrong category.” 

“But your daughter doesn’t marry a category,” 
Townsend urged, with his handsome smile. “ She 
marries an individual — an individual whom she is 
so good as to say she loves.” 

“An individual who offers so little in return.” 

“ Is it possible to offer more than the most tender 


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WASHINGTON SQUARE. 


affection and a life-long devotion the young man 
demanded. 

‘‘It depends how we take it. It is possible to 
offer a few other things besides, and not only is it 
possible, but it is the custom. A life-long devotion 
is measured after the fact; and meanwhile it is 
usual in these cases to give a few material securi- 
ties. What are yours ? A very handsome face 
and figure, and a very good manner. They are ex- 
cellent as far as they go, but they don’t go far 
enough.” 

“ There is one thing, you should add to them,” 
said Morris — “ the word of a gentleman.” 

“ The word of a gentleman that you will always 
love Catherine? You must be a fine gentleman to 
be sure of that.” 

“ The word of a gentleman that I am not merce- 
nary ; that my affection for Miss Sloper is as pure 
and disinterested a sentiment as was ever lodged in 
a human breast. I care no more for her fortune 
than for the ashes in that grate.” 

“I take note — I take note,” said the Doctor. 
“But, having done so, I turn to our category again. 
Even with that solemn vow on your lips, you take 
your place in it. There is nothing against you but 
an accident, if you will ; but, with my thirty years’ 
medical practice, I have seen that accidents may 
have far-reaching consequences.” 

Morris smoothed his hat — it was already remark- 
ably glossy — and continued to display a self-control 
which, as the Doctor was obliged to admit, was ex- 
tremely creditable to him. But his disappointment 
was evidently keen. 


WASHINGTON SQUARE. 


91 


“Is there nothing I can do to make you believe 
in me?” 

“ If there were, I should be sorry to suggest it, for 
— don’t you see? — I don’t want to believe in you,” 
said the Doctor, smiling. 

“I would go and dig in the fields.” 

“ That would be foolish.” 

“ I will take the first work that offers to-morrow.” 

“ Do so by all means — but for your own sake, not 
for mine.” 

“I see; you think I am an idler!” Morris ex- 
claimed, a little too much in the tone of a man who 
has made a discovery. But he saw his error im- 
mediately, and blushed. 

“ It doesn’t matter what I think, when once I have 
told you I don’t think of you as a son-in-law.” 

But Morris persisted : “ You think I would squan- 
der her money ?” 

The Doctor smiled. “ It doesn’t matter, as I say ; 
but I plead guilty to that.” 

“ That’s because I spent my own, I suppose,” said 
Morris. “ I frankly confess that. I have been wild ; 
I have been foolish. I will tell you every crazy 
thing I ever did, if you like. There were some 
great follies among the number — I have never con- 
cealed that. But I have sown my wild-oats. Isn’t 
there some proverb about a reformed rake ? I was 
not a rake, but I assure you I have reformed. It is 
better to have amused one’s self for awhile and have 
done with it. Your daughter would never care for 
a milksop ; and I will take the liberty of saying that 
you would like one quite as little. Besides, between 
my money and hers there is a great difference. I 


92 


WASHINGTON SQUARE. 


spent my own ; it was because it was my own that I 
spent it. And I made no debts ; when it was gone 
I stopped. I don’t owe a penny in the world.” 

“Allow me to inquire what you are living on 
now — though I admit,” the Doctor added, “ that the 
question, on my part, is inconsistent.” 

“ I am living on the remnants of my property,” 
said Morris Townsend. 

“ Thank you,” the Doctor gravely replied. 

Yes, certainly, Morris’s self-control was laudable. 
“Even admitting I attach an undue importance to 
Miss Sloper’s fortune,” he went on, “ would not that 
he in itself an assurance that I would take good care 
of it?” 

“ That you should take too much care would be 
quite as bad as that you should take too little. Cath- 
erine might suffer as much by your economy as by 
your extravagance.” 

“ I think you are very unjust !” The young man 
made this declaration decently, civilly, without vio- 
lence. 

“ It is your privilege to think so, and I surrender 
my reputation to you ! I certainly don’t flatter my- 
self, I gratify you.” 

“Don’t you care a little to gratify your daugh- 
ter? Do you enjoy the idea of making her miser- 
able?” 

“ I am perfectly resigned to her thinking me a 
tyrant for a twelvemontfl.” 

“For a twelvemonth !” exclaimed Morris, with a 
laugh. 

“ For a lifetime, then. She may as well be miser- 
able in that way as in the other.” 


WASHINGTON SQUARE. 


93 


Here at last Morris lost his temper. “ Ah, you 
are not polite, sir !” he cried. 

“ You push me to it — you argue too much.” 

“ I have a great deal at stake.” 

Well, whatever it is,” said the Doctor, “ you have 
lost it.” 

“ Are you sure of that ?” asked Morris ; “ are you 
sure your daughter will give me up ?” 

mean, of course, you have lost it as far as I am 
concerned. As for Catherine’s giving you up — no, I 
am not sure of it. But as I shall strongly recommend 
it, as I have a great fund of respect and affection in 
my daughter’s mind to draw upon, and as she has 
the sentiment of duty developed in a very high de- 
gree, I think it extremely possible.” 

Morris Townsend began to smooth his hat again. 
“ I, too, have a fund of affection to draw upon,” he 
observed, at last. 

The Doctor at this point showed his own first 
symptoms of irritation. “Do you mean to defy 
me ?” 

“ Call it what you please, sir. I mean not to give 
your daughter up.” 

The Doctor shook his head. “ I haven’t the least 
fear of your pining away your life. You are made 
to enjoy it.” 

Morris gave a laugh. “Your opposition to my 
marriage is all the more cruel, therj. , Do you intend 
to forbid your daughter to see me again ?” 

“ She is past the age at which people are forbid- 
den, and I am not a father in an old-fashioned novel. 
But I shall strongly urge her to break with you.” 

“I don’t think she will,” said Morris Townsend. 


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WASHINGTON SQUARE. 


“Perhaps not; but I shall have done what I 
could.” 

“ She has gone too far — ” Morris went on. 

“ To retreat ? Then let her stop where she is.” 

“ Too far to stop, I mean.” 

The Doctor looked at him a moment; Morris had 
his hand on the door. “ There is a great deal of im- 
pertinence in your saying it.” 

“I will say no more, sir,” Morris answered; and, 
making his bow, he left the room. 


WASHINGTON SQUARE. 


95 


XIII. 



It may be thought the Doctor was too positive, 
and Mrs. Almond intimated as much. But, as he 
said, he had his impression ; it seemed to him suffi- 
cient, and he had no wish to modify it. He had 
passed his life in estimating people (it was part of 
the medical trade), and in nineteen cases out of 
twenty he was right. 


96 


WASHINGTON SQUARE. 


Perhaps Mr. Townsend is the twentieth case,” 
said Mrs. Almond. 

“Perhaps he is, though he doesn’t look to me at 
all like a twentieth case. But I will give him the 
beneht of the doubt, and, to make sure, I will go and 
talk with Mrs. Montgomery. She will almost cer- 
tainly tell me I have done right; but it is just pos- 
sible that she will prove to me that I have made the 
greatest mistake of my life. If she does, I wdll beg 
Mr. Townsend’s pardon. You needn’t invite her to 
meet me, as you kindly proposed ; I will write her a 
frank letter, telling her how matters stand, and ask- 
ing leave to come and see her.” 

“ I am afraid the frankness will be chiefly on your 
side. The poor little woman will stand up for her 
brother, whatever he may be.” 

“ Whatever he may be ! I doubt that. People 
are not always so fond of their brothers.” 

“ Ah,” said Mrs. Almond, “ when it’s a question of 
thirty thousand a year coming into a family — ” 

“ If she stands up for him on account of the mon- 
ey, she w’ill be a humbug. If she is a humbug, I 
shall see it. If I see it, I won’t waste time with 
her.” 

“She is not a humbug — she is an exemplary 
woman. She wflll not wdsh to play her brother a 
trick simply because he is selfish.” 

“ If she is worth talking to, she will sooner play 
him a trick than that he should play Catherine one. 
Has she seen Catherine, by-the-way — does she know 
her?” 

“Hot to my knowledge. Mr. Townsend can have 
had no particular interest in bringing them together.” 


WASHINGTON SQUARE. 97 

‘‘ If she is an exemplary woman, no. But we shall 
see to what extent she answers your description.’’ 

“ I shall be curious to hear her description of 
you,” said Mrs. Almond, with a laugh. ‘‘And, 
meanwhile, how is Catherine taking it ?” 

“As she takes everything — as a matter of course.” 

“ Doesn’t she make a noise ? Hasn’t she made a 
scene ?” 

“ She is not scenic.” 

“ I thought a lovelorn maiden was always scenic.” 

“A ridiculous widow is more so. Lavinia has 
made me a speech ; she thinks me very arbitrary.” 

“ She has a talent for being in the wrong,” said 
Mrs. Almond. “ But I am very sorry for Catherine, 
all the same.” 

' “ So am I. But she will get over it.” 

“You believe she will give him up?” 

“ I count upon it. She has such an admiration 
for her father.” 

“ Oh, we know all about that. But it only makes 
me pity her the more. It makes her dilemma the 
more painful, and the effort of choosing between 
you and her lover almost impossible.” 

“ If she can’t choose, all the better.” 

“ Yes ; but he will stand there entreating her to 
choose, and Lavinia wdll pull on that side.” 

“ I am glad she is not on my side ; she is capable 
of ruining an excellent cause. The day Lavinia 
gets into your boat it capsizes. But she had better 
be careful,” said the Doctor. “ I will have no trea- 
son in my house.” 

“ I suspect she will be careful ; for she is at bot- 
tom very much afraid of you.” 

V 


98 


WASHINGTON SQUARE. 


“ They are both afraid of me, harmless as I am,” 
the Doctor answered. “And it is on that that I 
build — on the salutary terror I inspire.” 


XIY. 

He wrote his frank letter to Mrs. Montgomery, 
who punctually answered it, mentioning an hour at 
which he might present himself in the Second Ave- 
nue. She lived in a neat little house of red brick, 
which had been freshly painted, with the edges of 
the bricks very sharply marked out in white. It 
has now disappeared, with its companions, to make 
room for a row of structures more majestic. There 
were green shutters upon the windows without slats, 
but pierced with little holes, arranged in groups ; 
and before the house was a diminutive “yard,” or’ 
namented with a bush of mysterious character, and 
surrounded by a low wooden paling, painted in the 
same green as the shutters. The place looked like 
a magnified baby-house, and might have been taken 
down from a shelf in a toy-shop. Doctor Sloper, 
when he went to call, said to himself, as he glanced 
at the objects I have enumerated, that Mrs. Mont- 
gomery was evidently a thrifty and self-respecting 
little person — the modest proportions of her dwell- 
ing seemed to indicate that she was of small stature 
— who took a virtuous satisfaction in keeping her- 
self tidy, and had resolved that, since she might not 
be splendid, she w^ould at least be immaculate. She 
received him in a little parlor, w’hich was precisely 


WASHINGTON SQUARE. 


99 


the parlor he had expected : a small unspeckled 
bower, ornamented with a desultory foliage of tissue- 
paper, and with clusters of glass drops, amidst which 
— to carry out the analogy — the temperature of the 
leafy season was maintained by means of a cast-iron 
stove, emitting a dry blue flame, and smelling strong- 
ly of varnish. The walls were embellished with en- 
gravings swathed in pink gauze^and the tables orna- 
mented with volumes of extracts from the poets, 
usually bound in black cloth stamped with florid de- 
signs in jaundiced gilt. The Doctor had time to 
take cognizance of these details ; for Mrs. Mont- 
gomery, whose conduct he pronounced under the 
circumstances inexcusable, kept him waiting some 
ten minutes before she appeared. At last, however, 
she rustled in, smoothing down a stiff poplin dress, 
with a little frightened flush in a gracefully rounded 
cheek. 

She was a small, plump, fair woman, with a bright, 
clear eye, and an extraordinary air of neatness and 
briskness. But these qualities were evidently com- 
bined with an unaffected humility, and the Doctor 
gave her his esteem as soon as he had looked at her. 
A brave little person, with lively perceptions, and 
yet a disbelief in her own talent for social, as distin- 
guished from practical, affairs — this was his rapid 
mental resume of Mrs. Montgomery ; who, as he saw, 
was flattered by what she regarded as the honor of 
his visit. Mrs. Montgomery, in her little red house 
in the Second Avenue, was a person for whom Dr. 
Sloper was one of the great men — one of the flne 
gentlemen of New York ; and while she fixed her 
agitated eyes upon him, while she clasped her mit- 


100 


WASHINGTON SQUARE. 


tened hands together in her glossy poplin lap, she 
had the appearance of saying to herself that he quite 
answered her idea of what a distinguished guest 
would naturally be. She apologized for being late ; 
but he interrupted her. 

“ It doesn’t matter,” he said ; “ for while I sat 
here I had time to think over what I wish to say to 
you, and to make up my mind how to begin.” 

‘‘ Oh, do begin !” murmured Mrs. Montgomery. 

“ It is not so easy,” said the Doctor, smiling. 
“ You will have gathered from my letter that I wish 
to ask you a few questions, and you may not find it 
very comfortable to answer them.” 

“ Yes ; I have thought what I should say. It is 
not very easy.” 

“But you must understand my situation — my 
state of mind. Your brother wishes to marry my 
daughter, and I wish to find out what sort of a young 
man he is. A good way to do so seemed to be to 
come and ask you, which I have proceeded to do.” 

Mrs. Montgomery evidently took the situation 
very seriously ; she was in a state of extreme moral 
concentration. She kept her pretty eyes, which' 
were illumined by a sort of brilliant modesty, at- 
tached to his own countenance, and evidently paid 
the most earnest attention to each of his words. 
Her expression indicated that she thought his idea 
of coming to see her a very superior conception, 
but that she was really afraid to have opinions on 
strange subjects. 

“ I am extremely glad to see you,” she said, in a 
tone which seemed to admit, at the same time, that 
this had nothing to do with the question. 


WASHINGTON SQUARE. 


101 


The Doctor took advantage of this admission. 
‘‘I didn’t come to see yon for your pleasure; I 
came to make you say disagreeable things — and you 
can’t like that. What sort of a gentleman is your 
brother ?” 

Mrs. Montgomery’s illuminated gaze grew vague, 
and began to wander. She smiled a little, and for 
some time made no answer, so that the Doctor at 
last became impatient. And her answer, when it 
came, was not satisfactory. ‘‘ It is difficult to talk 
about one’s brother.” 

“ ]^ot when one is fond of him, and when one has 
plenty of good to say.” 

‘‘ Yes, even then, when a good deal depends on 
it,” said Mrs. Montgomery. 

“ Nothing depends on it for you.” 

“ I mean for — for — ” and she hesitated. 

“ For your brother himself. I see.” 

“ I mean for Miss Sloper,” said Mrs. Montgomery. 

The Doctor liked this; it had the accent of sin- 
cerity. “Exactly; that’s the point. If my poor 
girl should marry your brother, everything — as re- 
gards her happiness — would depend on his being a 
good fellow. She is the best creature in the world, 
and she could never do him a grain of injury. He, 
on the other hand, if he should not be all that we 
desire, might make her very miserable. That is 
why I want you to throw some light upon his char- 
acter, you know. Of course, you are not bound to 
do it. My daughter, whom you have never seen, is 
nothing to you ; and I, possibly, am only an indis- 
creet and impertinent old man. It is perfectly open 
to you to tell me that my visit is in very bad taste. 


102 


WASHINGTON SQUARE. 


and that I had better go about mj business. But I 
don’t think you will do this; because I think we 
shall interest you — my poor girl and I. 1 am sure 
that if you were to see Catherine she would interest 
you very much. I don’t mean because she is inter- 
esting in the usual sense of the word, but because 
you would feel sorry for her. She is so soft, so sim- 
ple-minded, she would be such an easy victim ! A 
bad husband would have remarkable facilities for 
making her miserable ; for she would have neither 
the intelligence nor the resolution to get the better 
of him, and yet she would have an exaggerated 
power of suffering. I see,” added the Doctor, with 
his most insinuating, his most professional laugh, 
‘‘you are already interested.” 

“ I have been interested from the moment he told 
me he was engaged,” said Mrs. Montgomery. 

“ Ah ! he says that — he calls it an engagement ?” 

“ Oh, he has told me you didn’t like it.” 

“ Did he tell you that I don’t like himV'^ 

“ Yes, he told me that too. I said I couldn’t help 
it,” added Mrs. Montgomery. 

“Of course you can’t. But what you can do is 
to tell me I am right — to give me an attestation, as 
it were.” And the Doctor accompanied this remark 
with anotlier professional smile. 

Mrs. Montgomery, however, smiled not at all ; it 
was obvious that she could not take the humorous 
view of his appeal. “ That is a good deal to ask,” 
she said, at last. 

“ There can be no doubt of that ; and I must, in 
conscience, remind you of the advantages a young 
man marrying my daughter would enjoy. She has 


WASHINGTON SQUARE. 


103 


an income of ten thousand dollars in her own right, 
left her by her mother; if she marries a husband I 
approve, she will come into almost twice as much 
more at my death.” 

Mrs. Montgomery listened in great earnestness to 
this splendid financial statement ; she had never 
heard thousands of dollars so familiarly talked about. 
She flushed a little with excitement. “ Your daugh- 
ter will be immensely rich,” she said, softly. 

“ Precisely — that’s the bother of it.” 

‘‘And if Morris should marry her, he — he — ” 
And she hesitated, timidly. 

“ He would be master of all that money ? By no 
means. He would be master of the ten thousand 
a year that she has from her mother ; but I should 
leave every penny of my own fortune, earned in the 
laborious exercise of my profession, to my nephews, 
and nieces.” 

Mrs. Montgomery dropped her eyes at this, and 
sat for some time gazing at the straw matting which 
covered her floor. 

“ I suppose it seems to you,” said the Doctor, 
laughing, “ that in so doing 1 should play your 
brother a very shabby trick.” 

“Hot at all. That is too much money to get 
possession of so easily by marrying, I don’t think 
it would be right.” 

“It’s right to get all one can. But in this case 
your brother wouldn’t be able. If Catherine mar- 
ries without my consent, she doesn’t get a penpy 
from my own pocket.” 

“ Is that certain ?” asked Mrs. Montgoniery, look- 
ing up. 


104 


WASHINGTON SQUARE. 


“ As certain as that I sit here.” 

“ Even if she should pine away 

‘‘ Even if she should pine to a shadow, which isn’t 
probable.” 

Does Morris know this ?” 

I shall be most happy to inform him,” the Doc- 
tor exclaimed. 

Mrs. Montgomery resumed her meditations ; and 
her visitor, who was prepared to give time to the 
affair, asked himself whether, in spite of her little 
conscientious air, she was not playing into her broth- 
er’s hands. At the same time he was half ashamed 
of the ordeal to which he had subjected her, and 
was touched by the gentleness with which she bore 
it. “ If she were a humbug,” he said, “ she would 
get angry, unless she be very deep indeed. It is 
not probable that she is as deep as that.” 

“What makes you dislike Morris so much?” she 
presently asked, emerging from her reflections. 

“ I don’t dislike him in the least as a friend, as a 
companion. He seems to me a charming fellow, 
and I should think he would be excellent company. 
I dislike him exclusively as a son-in-law. If the 
only office of a son-in-law were to dine at the paternal 
table, I should set a high value upon your brother : 
he dines capitally. But that is a small part of his 
function, which, in general, is to be a protector and 
care-taker of my child, who is singularly ill-adapted 
to take care of herself. It is there that he doesn’t 
satisfy me. I confess I have nothing but my im- 
pression to go by ; but I am in the habit of trusting 
my impression. Of course you are at liberty to con- 
tradict it flat. He strikes me as selflsh and shallow.” 


WASHINGTON SQUARE. 


105 


Mrs. Montgomery’s eyes expanded a little, and 
the Doctor fancied he saw the light of admiration 
in them. “I wonder you have discovered he is 
selfish,” she exclaimed. 

“ Do you think he hides it so well ?” 

“ V ery well indeed,” said Mrs. Montgomery. “ And 
I think we are all rather selfish,” she added, quickly. 

“ I think so too ; but I have seen people hide it 
better than he. You see I am helped by a habit I 
have of dividing people into classes, into types. I 
may easily be mistaken about your brother as an 
individual, but his type is written on his whole 
person.” 

“ He is very good-looking,” said Mrs. Montgomery. 

The Doctor eyed her a moment. “You women 
are all the same ! But the type to which your 
brother belongs was made to be the ruin of you, and 
you were made to be its handmaids and victims.. 
The sign of the type in question is the determina- 
tion — sometimes terrible in its quiet intensity — to 
accept nothing of life but its pleasures, and to secure 
these pleasures chiefly by the aid of your complaisant 
sex. Young men of this class never do anything 
for themselves that they can get other people to do 
for them, and it is the infatuation, the devotion, the 
superstition of others that keeps them going. These 
others, in ninety- nine cases out of a hundred, are 
women. What our young friends chiefly insist 
upon is that some one else shall suffer for them ; 
and women do that sort of thing, as you must know, 
wonderfully well.” The Doctor paused a moment, 
and then he added, abruptly, “ You have suffered 
immensely for your brother !” 


106 


WASHINGTON SQUARE. 


This exclamation was abrupt, as I say, but it was 
also perfectly calculated. The Doctor had been 
rather disappointed at not finding his compact and 
comfortable little liostess surrounded in a more visi- 
ble degree by the ravages of Morris Townsend’s im- 
morality ; but he had said to himself that this was 
not because the young man had spared her, but be- 
cause she had contrived to plaster up her wounds. 
They were aching there behind the varnished stove, 
the festooned engravings, beneath her own neat lit- 
tle poplin bosom ; and if he could only touch the ten- 
der spot, she would make a movement that would 
betray her. The words I have just quoted were an 
attempt to put his finger suddenly upon the place, 
and they had some of the success that he looked for. 
The tears sprung for a moment to Mrs. Montgom- 
ery’s eyes, and she indulged in a proud little jerk of 
the head. 

“ I don’t know how you have found that out !” she 
exclaimed. 

“By a philosophic trick — by wdiat they call in- 
duction. You know you hav^e always your option 
of contradicting me. But kindl|^ answer me a ques- 
tion : Don’t you give your brother money ? I think 
you ought to answer that.” 

“Yes, I have given him money,” said Mrs. Mont- 
gomery. 

“And you have not had much to give him?” 

She was silent a moment. “ If you ask me for a 
confession of poverty, that is easily made. I am 
very poor.” 

“One would never suppose it from your — your 
charming house,” said the Doctor. “ I learned from 


WASHINGTON SQUARE. 107 

my sister that your income was moderate, and your 
family numerous.” 

“I have five children,” Mrs. Montgomery ob- 
served ; “ but I am happy to say I can bring them 
up decently.” 

“ Of course you can — accomplished and devoted 
as you are. But your brother iias counted them 
over, I suppose ?” 

“ Counted them over ?” 

“ He knows there are five, I mean. He tells me 
it is he that brings them up.” 

Mrs. Montgomery stared a moment, and then 
quickly — “ Oh yes ; he teaches them — Spanish.” 

The Doctor laughed out. “That must take a 
great deal off your hands ! Your brother also knows, 
pf course, that you have very little money ?” 

“I have often told him so,” Mrs. Montgomery 
exclaimed, more unreservedly than she had yet 
spoken. She was apparently taking some comfort 
in the Doctor’s clairvoyance. 

“Which means that you have often occasion to, 
and that he often sponges on you. Excuse the cru- 
dity of my languag^; I simply express a fact. I 
don’t ask you how much of your money he has had, 
it is none of my business. I have ascertained what 
I suspected — what I wished.” And the Doctor got 
up, gently smoothing his hat. “ Your brother lives 
on you,” he said, as he stood there. 

Mrs. Montgomery quickly rose from her chair, 
following her visitor’s movements with a look of 
fascination. But then, with a certain inconsequence 
— “ I liave never complained of him,” she said. 

“You needn’t protest — you have not betrayed 


108 


WASHINGTON SQUARE. 


liim. But I advise you not to give him any more 
money.” 

“ Don’t you see it is in my interest that he should 
marry a rich person ?” she asked. If, as you say, 
he lives on me, I can only wish to get rid of him ; 
and to put obstacles in the way of his marrying is 
to increase my own difficulties.” 

I wish very much you would come to me with 
your difficulties,” said the Doctor. “ Certainly, if I 
throw him back on your hands, the least I can do is 
to help you to bear the burden. If you will allow 
me to say so, then, I shall take the liberty of placing 
in your hands, for the present, a certain fund for 
your brother’s support.” 

Mrs. Montgomery stared ; she evidently thought 
he was jesting; but she presently saw that he was 
not, and the complication of her feelings became 
painful. “ It seems to me that I ought to be very 
much offended with you,” she murmured. 

‘‘Because I have offered you money? That’s a 
superstition,” said the Doctor. “ You must let me 
come and see you again, and we will talk about these 
things. I suppose that some of your children are 
girls?” 

“ I have two little girls,” said Mrs. Montgomery. 

“ Well, when they grow up, and begin to think of 
taking husbands, you will see how anxious you will 
be about the moral character of these husbands. 
Then you wdll understand this visit of mine.” 

“Ah, you are not to believe that Morris’s moral 
character is bad.” 

The Doctor looked at her a little, with folded 
arms. “ There is something I should greatly like. 





I' 



|r- 

I t. 










WASHINGTON SQUARE. 


Ill 


as a moral satisfaction. I should like to hear you 
say, ‘ He is abominably selfish.’ ” 

The words came out with the grave distinctness 
of his voice, and they seemed for an instant to create, 
to poor Mrs. Montgomery’s troubled vision, a mate- 
rial image. She gazed at it an instant, and then she 
turned away. “You distress me, sir!” she exclaim- 
ed. “ He is, after all, my brother ; and his talents, 
his talents — ” On these last words her voice quaver- 
ed, and before he knew it she had burst into tears. 

“ His talents are first-rate,” said the Doctor. “ We 
must find the proper field for them.” And he as- 
sured her most respectfully of his regret at having 
so greatly discomposed her. “ It’s all for my poor 
Catherine,” he went on. “ You must know her, and 
you will see.” 

Mrs. Montgomery brushed away her tears, and 
blushed at having shed them. “I should like to 
know your daughter,” she answered ; and then, in 
an instant — “ Don’t let her marry him 1” 

Doctor Sloper went away with the words gently 
humming in his ears — “Don’t let her marry him 1” 
They gave him the moral satisfaction of which he 
had just spoken, and their value was the greater 
that they had evidently cost a pang to poor little 
Mrs. Montgomery’s family pride. 


112 


WASHINGTON SQUARE. 


XY. 

He had been puzzled by the way that Catherine 
carried herself ; her attitude at this sentimental cri- 
sis seemed to him unnaturally passive. She had not 
spoken to him again after that scene in the library, 
the day before his interview with Morris; and a 
week had elapsed without making any change in 
her manner. There was nothing in it that appealed 
for pity, and he was even a little disappointed at her 
not giving him an opportunity to make up for his 
harshness by some manifestation of liberality which 
should operate as a compensation. He thought a 
little of offering to take her for a tour in Europe ; 
but he was determined to do this only in case she 
should seem mutely to reproach him. He had an 
idea that she would display a talent for mute re- 
proaches, and he was surprised at not finding him- 
self exposed to these silent batteries. She said 
nothing, either tacitly or explicitly, and as she was 
never very talkative, there was now no especial elo- 
quence in her reserve. And poor Catherine was 
not sulky — a style of behavior for which she had 
too little histrionic talent — she was simply very 
patient. Of course she was thinking over her situa- 
tion, and she was apparently doing so in a deliberate 
and unimpassioned manner, with a view of making 
the best of it. 


WASHINGTON SQUAEE. 


113 


She will do as I have bidden her,” said the Doc- 
tor; and he made the further reflection that his 
daughter was not a woman of a great spirit. 

I know not whether he had hoped for a little 
more resistance for the sake of a little more enter- 
tainment; but he said to himself, 'as he had said be- 
fore, that though it might have its momentary alarms, 
paternity was, after all, not an exciting vocation. 

Catherine meanwhile had made a discovery of a 
very different sort ; it had become vivid to her that 
there was a great excitement in trying to be a good 
daughter. She had an entirely new feeling, which 
may be described as a state of expectant suspense 
about her own actions. She watched herself as she 
would have watched another person, and wondered 
what she would do. It was as if this other person, 
who was both herself and not herself, had suddenly 
sprung into being, inspiring her with a natural curi- 
osity as to the performance of untested functions. 

I am glad I have such a good daughter,” said 
her father, kissing her, after the lapse of several 
days. 

‘‘ I am trying to be good,” she answered, turning 
away, with a conscience not altogether clear. 

‘^If there is anything you would like to say to 
me, you know you must not hesitate. You needn’t 
feel obliged to be so quiet. I shouldn’t care that 
Mr. Townsend should be a frequent topic of conver- 
sation, but whenever you have anything particular 
to say about him I shall be very glad to hear it.” 

“Thank you,” said Catherine; “I have nothing 
particular at present.” 

He never asked her whether she had seen Morris 
8 


114 


WASHINGTON SQUARE. 


again, because be was sure that if this had been the 
case she would tell him. She had, in fact, not seen 
him ; she had only written him a long letter. The 
letter, at least, was long for her ; and, it may be 
added, that it was long for Morris ; it consisted of 
five pages, in a remarkably neat and handsome hand. 
Catherine’s handwriting was beautiful, and she was 
even a little proud of it: she was extremely fond 
of copying, and possessed volumes of extracts which 
testified to this accomplishment; volumes which 
she had exhibited one day to her lover, when the 
bliss of feeling that she was important in his eyes 
was exceptionally keen. She told Morris, in writ- 
ing, that her father had expressed the wish that she 
should not see him again, and that she begged he 
would not come to the house until she should have 
‘‘ made up her mind.” Morris replied with a pas- 
sionate epistle, in which he asked to what, in 
Heaven’s name, she wished to make up her mind. 
Had not her mind been made up two weeks before, 
and could it be possible that she entertained the idea 
of throwing him off? Did she mean to break down 
at the very beginning of their ordeal, after all the 
promises of fidelity she had both given and extract- 
ed ? And he gave an account of his own interview 
with her father ^ — an account not identical at all 
points with that offered in these pages. “ He was 
terribly violent,” Morris wrote, ‘‘ but you know my 
self-control. I have need of it all when I remem- 
ber that I have it in my power to break in upon 
your cruel captivity.” Catherine sent him, in answer 
to this, a note of three lines. “ I am in great trou- 
ble ; do not doubt of my affection, but let me wait 


WASHINGTON SQUARE. 


115 


a little and think.” The idea of a struggle with 
her father, of setting up her will against his own, 
was heavy on her soul, and it kept her quiet, as a 
great physical weight keeps us motionless. It never 
entered into her mind to throw her lover otf ; but 
from the first she tried to assure herself that there 
would be a peaceful way out of their difficulty. 
The assurance was vague, for it contained no ele- 
ment of positive conviction that her father would 
change his mind. She only had an idea that if she 
should be very good, the situation would in some 
mysterious manner improve. To be good she must 
be patient, outwardly submissive, abstain from judg- 
ing her father too harshly, and from committing any 
act of open defiance. He was perhaps right, after all, 
to think as he did ; by which Catherine meant not 
in the least that his judgment of Morris’s motives 
in seeking to marry her was perhaps a just one, but 
that it was probably natural and proper that con- 
scientious parents should be suspicious and even un- 
just. There were probably people in the world as 
bad as her father supposed Morris to be, and if there 
were the slightest chance of Morris being one of 
these sinister persons, the Doctor was right in taking 
it into account. Of course he could not know what 
she knew — how the purest love and truth were seat- 
ed in the young man’s eyes ; but Heaven, in its time, 
might appoint a way of bringing him to such knowl- 
edge. Catherine expected a good deal of Heaven, 
and referred to the skies the initiative, as the French 
say, in dealing with her dilemma. She could not 
imagine herself imparting any kind of knowledge 
to her father; there was something superior even in 


116 


WASHINGTON SQUARE. 


his injustice, and absolute in his mistakes. But she 
could at least be good, and if she were only good 
enough, Heaven would invent some way of recon- 
ciling all things — the dignity of her father’s errors 
and the sweetness of her own confidence, the strict 
performance of her filial duties, and the enjoyment 
of Morris Townsend’s affection. 

Poor Catherine would have been glad to regard 
Mrs. Penniman as an illuminating agent, a part which 
this lady herself, indeed, was but imperfectly pre- 
pared to play. Mrs. Penniman took too much sat- 
isfaction in the sentimental shadows of this little 
drama to have, for the moment, any great interest 
in dissipating them. She wished the plot to thicken, 
and the advice that she gave her niece tended, in 
her own imagination, to produce this result. It was 
rather incoherent counsel, and from one day to an- 
other it contradicted itself ; but it was pervaded by 
an earnest desire that Catherine should do something 
striking. “You must act^ my dear; in your situa- 
tion the great thing is to act,” said Mrs. Penniman, 
who found her niece altogether beneath her oppor- 
tunities. Mrs. Penniman’s real hope was that the 
girl w^ould make a secret marriage, at which she 
should ofiiciate as bride’swoman or duenna. She had 
a vision of this ceremony being performed in some 
subterranean chapel; subterranean chapels in New 
York were not frequent, but Mrs. Penniman’s im- 
agination was not chilled by trifles ; and of the guilty 
couple — she liked to think of poor Catherine and her 
suitor as the guilty couple — being shuffled away in 
a fast-whirling vehicle to some obscure lodging in 
the suburbs, where she would pay them (in a thick 


WASHINGTON SQUARE. 


117 


veil) clandestine visits ; where they would endure a 
period of romantic privation ; and when ultimately, 
after she should have been their earthly providence, 
their intercessor, their advocate, and their medium 
of communication with the world, they would be 
reconciled to her brother in an artistic tableau, in 
which she herself should be somehow the central 
figure. She hesitated as yet to recommend this 
course to Catherine, but she attempted to draw an 
attractive picture of it to Morris Townsend. She 
was in daily communication with the young man, 
whom she kept informed by letters of the state of 
affairs in Washington Square. As he had been ban- 
ished, as she said, from the house, she no longer saw 
him ; but she ended by writing to him that she long- 
ed for an interview. This interview could take 
place only on neutral ground, and she bethought 
herself greatly before selecting a place of meeting. 
She had an inclination for Greenwood Cemetery, but 
she gave it up as too distant ; she could not absent 
herself for so long, as she said, without exciting sus- 
picion. Then she thought of the Battery, but that 
was rather cold and windy, besides one’s being ex- 
posed to intrusion from the Irish emigrants who at 
this point alight, with large appetites, in the JSTew 
World; and at last she fixed upon an oyster saloon 
in the Seventh Avenue, kept by a negro — an es- 
tablishment of which she knew nothing save that 
she had noticed it in passing. She made an appoint- 
ment with Morris Townsend to meet him there, and 
slie went to the tryst at dusk, enveloped in an im- 
penetrable veil. He kept her waiting for half an 
jiour— he had almost the whole width of the city to 


118 


WASHINGTON SQUARE. 


traverse — but she liked to wait, it seemed, to inten- 
sify the situation. She ordered a cup of tea, which 
proved excessively bad, and this gave her a sense 
that she was suffering in a romantic cause. When 
Morris at last arrived, they sat together for half an 
hour in the duskiest corner of the back shop ; and 
it is hardly too much to say that this was the hap- 
piest half-hour that Mrs. Penniman had known for 
years. The situation was really thrilling, and it 
scarcely seemed to her a false note when her com- 
panion asked for an oyster stew, and proceeded to 
consume it before her eyes. Morris, indeed, need- 
ed all the satisfaction that stewed oysters could give 
him, for it may be intimated to the reader that he 
regarded Mrs. Penniman in the light of a fifth wheel 
to his coach. He was in a state of irritation natural 
to a gentleman of fine parts who had been snubbed 
in a benevolent attempt to confer a distinction upon 
a young woman of inferior characteristics, and the 
insinuating sympathy of this somewhat desiccated 
matron appeared to offer him no practical relief. 
He thought her a humbug, and he judged of hum- 
bugs with a good deal of confidence. He had listen- 
ed and made himself agreeable to her at first, in or- 
der to get a footing in Washington Square; and at 
present he needed all his self-command to be decent- 
ly civil. It would have gratified him to tell her that 
she was a fantastic old woman, and that he would 
like to put her into an omnibus and send her home. 
We know, however, that Morris possessed the virtue 
of self-control, and he had moreover the constant 
habit of seeking to be agreeable ; so that, although 
Mrs. Penniman’s demeanor only exasperated his al- 


WASHINGTON SQUARE. 


119 


ready unquiet nerves, he listened to her with a 
sombre deference in which she found much to ad- 
mire. 


XYI. 

They had of course immediately spoken of Cath- 
erine. “ Did she send me a message, or — or any- 
thing?” Morris asked. He appeared to think that 
she might have sent him a trinket or a lock of her 
hair. 

Mrs. Penniman was slightly embarrassed, for she 
had not told her niece of her intended expedition. 
“ Not exactly a message,” she said ; ‘‘ I didn’t ask 
her for one, because I was afraid to — to excite her.” 

‘‘I am afraid she is not very excitable.” And 
Morris gave a smile of some bitterness. 

She is better than that — she is steadfast, she is 
true.” 

“ Do you think she will hold fast, then ?” 

“ To the death !” 

Oh, I hope it won’t come to that,” said Morris. 

We must be prepared for the worst, and that is 
what I wish to speak to you about.” 

‘‘ What do you call the worst ?” 

“ Well,” said Mrs. Penniman, my brother’s hard, 
intellectual nature.” 

“ Oh, the devil !” 

He is impervious to pity,” Mrs. Penniman add- 
ed, by way of explanation. 

“ Do you mean that he won’t come round ?” 

He will never be vanquished by argument. I 


120 


WASHINGTON SQUARE. 


have studied him. He will be vanquished only by 
the accomplished fact.” 

“ The accomplished fact 

“ He will come round afterward,” said Mrs. Pen- 
niman, with extreme significance. ‘‘ He cares for 
nothing but facts — he must be met by facts.” _ 

“ Well,” rejoined Morris, it is a fact that I wish 
to marry his daughter. I met him with that the 
other day, but he was not at all vanquished.” 

Mrs. Penniman was silent a little, and her smile 
beneath the shadow of her capacious .bonnet, on the 
edge of which her black veil was arranged curtain- 
wise, fixed itself upon Morris’s face wdth a still more • 
tender brilliancy. “ Marry Catherine first, and meet 
him afterward !” she exclaimed. 

“ Do you recommend that ?” asked the young 
man, frowning heavily. 

She was a little frightened, but she went on with 
considerable boldness. ‘‘That is the way I see it: 
a private marriage — a private marriage.” She re- 
peated the phrase because she liked it. 

“ Do you mean that I should carry Catherine off ? 
What do they call it — elope with her?” 

“ It is not a crime when you are driven to it,” 
said Mrs. Penniman. “ My husband, as I have told 
you, was a distinguished clergyman — one of the 
most eloquent men of his day. He once married a 
young couple that had fled from tlie house of the 
young lady’s father; he was so interested in their 
story. He had no hesitation, and everything came 
out beautifully. The father was afterward recon- 
ciled, and thought everything of the young man. 
Mr. Penniman married them in the evening, about 


WASHINGTON SQUARE. 


121 


seven o clock. The church was so dark you could 
scarcely see, and Mr. Penniraan was intensely agi- 
tated — he was so sympathetic. I don’t believe he 
could have done it again.” 

“Unfortunately, Catherine and I have not Mr. 
Penniipan to marry us,” said Morris. 

“ E'o, but you have me !” rejoined Mrs. Penniman, 
expressively. “ I can’t perform the ceremony, but 
I can help you ; I can watch !” 

“ The woman’s an idiot !” thought Morris ; but he 
was obliged to*say something different. It was not, 
however, materially more civil. “Was it in order 
to tell me tliis that you requested I would meet you 
here ?” 

Mrs. Penniman had been conscious of a certain 
vagueness in her errand, and of not being able to 
offer him any very tangible reward for his long 
walk. “I thought perhaps you would like to see 
one who is so near to Catherine,” she observed, 
with considerable majesty; “and also,” she added, 
“that you would value an opportunity of sending 
her something.” 

Morris extended his empty hands with a melan- 
choly smile. “ I am greatly obliged to you, but I 
have nothing to send.” 

“Haven’t you a wordT'^ asked his companion, 
with her suggestive smile coming back. 

Morris frowned again. “Tell her to hold fast,” 
he said, rather curtly. 

“That is a good word — a noble word: it will 
make her happy for many days. She is very touch- 
ing, very brave,” Mrs. Penniman went on, arranging ^ 
her mantle and preparing to depart. While she 


122 


WASHINGTON SQUARE. 


was SO engaged she had an inspiration ; she found 
the phrase that she could boldly offer as a vindica- 
tion of the step she had taken. “ If you marry Cath- 
erine at all risks,” she said, “you will give my brother 
a proof of your being what he pretends to doubt.” 

“ What he pretends to doubt ?” 

“ Don’t you know what that is ?” Mrs. Penniman 
asked, almost playfully. 

“ It does not concern me to know,” said Morris, 
grandly. 

“ Of course it makes you angry.” 

“ I despise it,” Morris declared. 

“ Ah, you know what it is, then ?” said Mrs. Pen- 
niman, shaking her finger at him. “He pretends 
that you like — you like the money.” 

Morris hesitated a moment ; and then, as if he 
spoke advisedly, “I do like the money !” 

“Ah, but not — but not as he means it. You 
don’t like it more than Catherine ?” 

He leaned his elbows on the table and buried his 
head in his hands. “You torture me!” he mur- 
mured. And, indeed, this was almost the effect of 
the poor lady’s too importunate interest in his situ- 
ation. 

But she insisted in making her point. “If you 
marry her in spite of him, he will take for granted 
that you expect nothing of him, and are prepared to 
do without it; and so he will see that you are dis- 
interested.” 

Morris raised his head a little, following this argu- 
ment. “And what shall I gain by that?” 

“ Why, that he will see that he has been wrong in 
thinking that you wished to get his money.” 


WASHINGTON SQUARE. 


123 


“And seeing that I wish he would go to the deuce 
with it, he will leave it to a hospital. Is that what 
you mean asked Morris. 

“ Ho, I don’t mean that ; though that would be 
very grand,” Mrs. Penniman quickly added. “ I 
mean that, having done you such an injustice, he 
will think it his duty, at the end, to make some 
amends.” 

Morris shook his head, though it must be confess- 
ed he was a little struck with this idea. “Do you 
think he is so sentimental ?” 

“ He is not sentimental,” said Mrs. Penniman ; 

“ but, to be perfectly fair to him, I think he has, in 
his own narrow way, a certain sense of duty.” 

There passed through Morris Townsend’s mind a. 
rapid wonder as to what he might, even under a re- 
mote contingency, be indebted to from the action of 
this principle in Doctor Sloper’s breast, and the in- 
quiry exhausted itself in his sense of the ludicrous. 
“Your brother has no duties to me,” he said pres- 
ently, “ and I none to him.” 

“Ah, but he has duties to Catherine.” 

“Yes; but you see, on that principle Catherine 
has duties to him as well.” 

Mrs. Penniman got up with a melancholy sigh, as 
if she thought him very unimaginative. “ She has 
always performed them faithfully ; and now do you 
think she has no duties to youf^ Mrs. Penniman 
always, even in conversation, italicized her personal 
pronouns. 

“ It would sound harsh to say so. I am so grate- 
ful for her love,” Morris added. 

“ I will tell her you said that. And now, remem- ^ 


124 


WASHINGTON SQUARE. 


ber that if you need me I am there.” And Mrs. 
Penniman, who could think of nothing more to say, 
nodded vaguely in the direction of Washington 
Square. 

Morris looked some moments at the sanded floor 
of the shop ; he seemed to be disposed to linger a 
moment. At last, looking up with a certain abrupt- 
ness, “ It is your belief that if she marries me he 
will cut her off he asked. 

Mrs. Penniman stared a little, and smiled. “Why, 
I have explained to you what I think w^ould happen 
— that in the end it would be the best thing to do.” 

“You mean that, whatever she does, in the long- 
run she will get the money ?” 

, “ It doesn’t depend upon her, but upon you. 
Yenture to appear as disinterested as you are,” said 
Mrs. Penniman, ingeniousl}". Morris dropped his 
eyes on the sanded floor again, pondering this, and 
she. pursued : “ Mr. Penniman and I had nothing, 
and we were very happy. Catherine, moreover, 
has her mother’s fortune, which, at the time my sis- 
ter-in-law married, was considered a very handsome 
one.” 

“ Oh, don’t speak of that !” said Morris ; and in- 
deed it was quite superfluous, for he had contem- 
plated the fact in all its lights. 

“Austin married a wife with money — why 
shouldn’t you ?” 

“ Ah ! but your brother was a doctor,” Morris ob- 
jected. 

Well, all young men can’t be doctors.” 

“ I should think it an extremely loathsome pro- 
fession,” said^ Morris, wdth an air of intellectual in- 


WASHINGTON SQUARE. 


125 


dependence ; then, in a moment, he went on rather 
inconseqiiently, Do you suppose there is a will al- 
ready made in Catherine’s favor ?” 

“ I suppose so — even doctors must die ; and per- 
haps a little in mine,” Mrs. Penniman frankly added. 

“And you believe he would certainly change it — 
as regards Catherine 

“Yes; and then change it back again.” 

“ Ah, but one can’t depend on that,” said Morris. 

“ Do you want to dejpend on it ?” Mrs. Penniman 
asked. 

Morris blushed a little. “Well, I am certainly 
afraid of being the cause of an injury to Cathe- 
rine.” 

“Ah! you must not be afraid. Be afraid of 
nothing, and everything will go well.” 

And then Mrs. Penniman paid for her cup of tea, 
and Morris paid for his oyster stew, and they went 
out together into the dimly -lighted wilderness of 
the Seventh Avenue. The dusk had closed in com- 
pletely, and the street lamps were separated by wide 
intervals of a pavement in which cavities and fis- 
sures played a disproportionate part. An omnibus, 
emblazoned with strange pictures, went tumbling 
over the dislocated cobble-stones. 

“How will you go home?” Morris asked, follow- 
ing this vehicle with an interested eye. Mrs. Pen- 
niman had taken his arm. 

She hesitated a moment. “I think this manner 
would be pleasant,” she said ; and she continued to 
let him feel the value of his support. 

So he walked with her through the devious ways 
of the west side of the town, and through the bustle 


126 


WASHINGTON SQUARE. 


of gathering nightfall in populous streets, to the 
quiet precinct of Washington Square. They lin- 
gered a moment at the foot of Doctor Sloper’s white 
marble steps, above which a spotless white door, 
adorned with a glittering silver plate, seemed to fig- 
ure for Morris the closed portal of happiness ; and 
then Mrs. Penniman’s companion rested a melan- 
choly eye upon a lighted window in the upper part 
of the house. 

That is my room — my dear little room !” Mrs. 
Penniman remarked. 

Morris started. “ Then I needn’t come walking 
round the Square to gaze at it.” 

“ That’s as you please. But Catherine’s is be- 
hind ; two noble windows on the second floor. I 
think you can see them from the other street.” 

“ I don’t want to see them, ma’am.” And Morris 
turned his back to the house. 

“ I will tell her you have been here^ at any rate,” 
said Mrs. Penniman, pointing to the spot where they 
stood ; “ and I will give her your message — that she 
is to hold fast.” 

“ Oh yes; of course. You know I write her all 
that.” 

“It seems to say more when it is spoken. And 
remember, if you need me, that I am there , and Mrs. 
Penniman glanced at the third floor. 

On this they separated, and Morris, left to him- 
self, stood looking at the house a moment ; after 
which he turned away, and took a gloomy walk round 
the Square, on the opposite side, close to the wooden 
fence. Then he came back, and paused for a min- 
ute in front of Doctor Sloper’s dwelling. His eyes 


WASHINGTON SQUAKE. 


127 


travelled over it ; they even rested on the ruddy 
windows of Mrs. Penniman’s apartment. He thought 
it a devilish comfortable house. 


XYII. 

Mbs. Penniman told Catherine that evening — the 
two ladies were sitting in the back-parlor — that she 
had had an interview with Morris Townsend ; and 
on receiving this news the girl started wdth a sense 
of pain. She felt angry for the moment ; it was 
almost the first time she had ever felt angry. It 
seemed to her that her aunt was meddlesome ; and 
from this came a vague apprehension that she would 
spoil something. 

“I don’t see why you should have seen him. I 
don’t think it was right,” Catherine said. 

“ I was so sorry for him — it seemed to me some 
one ought to see him.” 

Ho one but I,” said Catherine, who felt as if she 
were making the most presumptuous speech of her 
life, and yet at the same time had an instinct that 
she was right in doing so. 

But you wouldn’t, my dear,” Aunt Lavinia re- 
joined; “and I didn’t know what might have be- 
come of him.” 

“ I have not seen him because my father has for- 
bidden it,” Catherine said, very simply. 

There was a simplicity in this, indeed, which 
fairly vexed Mrs. Penniman. “ If your father for- 
bade you to go to sleep, I suppose you would keep 
awake!” she commented. 


128 


WASHINGTON SQUARE. 


Catherine looked at her. “I don’t understand 
you. You seem to me very strange.” 

“ Well, my dear, you will understand me some 
day !” And Mrs. Penniman, who was reading the 
evening paper, which she perused daily from the 
first line to the last, resumed her occupation. She 
wrapped herself in silence; she was determined 
Catherine should ask her for an account of her in- 
terview with Morris. But Catherine was silent for 
so long that she almost lost patience; and she was 
on the point of remarking to her that she was very 
heartless, when the girl at last spoke. 

“ What did he say ?” she asked. 

“ He said he is ready to marry you any day, in 
spite of everything.” 

Catherine made no answer to this, and Mrs. Pen- 
niman almost lost patience again ; owing to which 
she at last volunteered the information that Morris 
looked very handsome, but terribly haggard. 

“ Did he seem sad ?” asked her niece. 

“ He was dark under the eyes,” said Mrs. Penni- 
man. So different from when I first saw him ; 
though I am not sure that if I had seen him in this 
condition the first time, I should not have been even 
more struck with him. There is something brilliant 
in his very misery.” 

This was, to Catherine’s sense, a vivid picture, 
and though she disapproved, she felt herself gazing 
at it. “ Where did you see him ?” she asked", pres- 
ently. 

“In — in the Bowery; at a confectioner’s,” said 
Mrs. Penniman, who had a general idea that she 
ought to dissemble a little. 


WASHINGTON SQUAKE. 


129 


“ Whereabouts is the place Catherine inquired, 
after another pause. 

“Do you wish to go there, my dear?” said her 
aunt. 

“ Oh no.” And Catherine got up from her seat 
and went to the fire, where she stood looking awhile 
at the gl owning coals. 

“ Why are you so dry, Catherine ?” Mrs. Penniman 
said at last. 

“ So dry ?” 

“ So cold — so irresponsive.” 

The girl turned very quickly. “ Did he say that ?” 

Mrs. Penniman hesitated a moment. “ I will tell 
you what he said. He said he feared only one thing 
— that you would be afraid.” 

“ Afraid of what ?” 

“ Afraid of your father.” 

Catherine turned back to the fire again, and 
then, after a pause, she said, “I am afraid of my 
father.” 

Mrs. Penniman got quickly up from her chair and 
approached her niece. “ Do you mean to give him 
up, then ?” 

Catherine for some time never moved ; she kept 
her eyes on the coals. At last she raised her head 
and looked at her aunt. “Why do you push me 
so ?” she asked. 

“ I don’t push you. When have I spoken to you 
before ?” 

“ It seems to me that you have spoken to me sev‘ 
eral times.” 

“ I am afraid it is necessary, then, Catherine,” said 
Mrs. Penniman, with a good deal of solemnity. “I 
■ 9 


130 


WASHINGTON SQUARE. 


am afraid you don’t feel the importance ” — she 
paused a little ; Catherine was looking at her — “ the 
importance of not disappointing that gallant young 
heart !” And Mrs. Penniman went back to her 
chair by the lamp, and, with a little jerk, picked up 
the evening paper again. 

Catherine stood there before the fire, with her 
hands behind her, looking at her aunt, to whom it 
seemed that the girl had never had just this dark 
fixedness in her gaze. “ I don’t think you under- 
stand or that you know me,” she said. 

“ If I don’t, it is not wonderful ; you trust me so 
little.” 

Catherine made no attempt to deny this charge, 
and for some time more nothing was said. But Mrs. 
Penniman’s imagination was restless, and the evening 
paper failed on this occasion to enchain it. 

‘‘If you succumb to the dread of your father’s 
wrath,” she said, “I don’t know what will become of 
us.” 

“ Did he tell you to say these things to me ?” 

“ He told me to use my influence.” 

“You must be mistaken,” said Catherine. “He 
trusts me.” 

“I hope he may never repent of it!” And Mrs. 
Penniman gave a little sharp slap to her newspaper. 
She knew not what to make of her niece, who had 
suddenly become stern and contradictious. 

This tendency on Catherine’s part was presently 
even more apparent. “You had much better not 
make any more appointments with Mr. Townsend,” 
she said. “ I don’t think it is right.” 

Mrs. Penniman rose with considerable majesty. 


WASHINGTON SQUARE. 131 

My poor child, are you jealous of me she in- 
quired. 

“ Oh, Aunt Lavinia !” murmured Catherine, blush- 
ing. 

‘‘ I don’t think it is your place to teach me what 
is right.” 

On this point Catherine made no concession. “ It 
can’t be right to deceive.” 

“I certainly have not deceived youP^ 

“ Yes ; but I promised my father — ” 

“ I have no doubt you promised your father. But 
I have promised him nothing.” 

Catherine had to admit this, and she did so in 
silence. “I don’t believe Mr. Townsend himself 
likes it,” she said, at last. 

“ Doesn’t like meeting me ?” 

“ ]^ot in secret.” 

“ It was not in secret ; the place was full of peo- 
ple.” 

“But it was a secret place — away off in the 
Bowery.” 

Mrs. Penniman flinched a little. “ Gentlemen 
enjoy such things,” she remarked, presently. “ I 
know what gentlemen like.” 

“ My father wouldn’t like it, if he knew.” 

“Pray, do you propose to inform him?” Mrs. 
Penniman inquired. 

“1^0, Aunt Lavinia. But please don’t do it 
again.” 

“ If I do it again you will inform him — is that 
what you mean ? I do not share your dread of my 
brother; I have always known how to defend my 
own position. But I shall certainly never again 


132 


WASHINGTON SQUARE. 


take any step on your behalf ; you are much too 
thankless. I knew you were not a spontaneous nat- 
ure, but I believed you were firm, and I told your 
father that he would find you so. I am disappoint- 
ed, but your father will not be.” And with this 
Mrs. Penniman offered her niece a brief good-night, 
and withdrew to her own apartment. 


XVIII. 

Catherine sat alone by the parlor fire — sat there 
for more than an hour, lost in her meditations. Her 
aunt seemed to her aggressive and foolish ; and to 
see it so clearly — to judge Mrs. Penniman so posi- 
tively — made her feel old and grave. She did not 
resent the imputation of w^eakness ; it made no 
impression on her, for she had not the sense of 
weakness, and she was not hurt at not being ap- 
preciated. She had an immense respect for her 
father, and she felt that to displease him would be 
a misdemeanor analogous to an act of profanity in 
a great temple : but her purpose had slowly ripened, 
and she believed that her prayers had purified it of 
its violence. The evening advanced, and the lamp 
burnt dim without her noticing it ; her eyes were 
fixed upon her terrible plan. She knew her father 
was in his study — that he had been there all the 
evening; from time to time she expected to hear 
him move. She thought he would perhaps come, 
as he sometimes came, into the parlor. At last the 
clock struck eleven, and the house was wrapped in 


WASHINGTON SQUARE. 


133 


silence; the servants had gone to bed. Catherine 
got np and went slowly to the door of the library, 
where she waited a moment, motionless. Then she 
knocked, and then she waited again. Her father 
had answered her, but she had not the courage to 
turn the latch. What she had said to her aunt was 
true enough — she w^as afraid of him ; and in saying 
that she had no sense of weakness, she meant that 
she was not afraid of herself. She heard him move 
within, and he came and opened the door for her. 

“ What is the matter?” asked the Doctor. “ You 
are standing there like a ghost !” 

She went into the room, but it was some time be- 
fore she contrived to say what she had come to say. 
Her father, who w^as in his dressing-gown and slip- 
pers, had been busy at his writing-table, and after 
looking at her for some moments, and waiting for 
her to speak, he went and seated himself at his 
papers again. His back was turned to her — she 
began to hear the scratching of his pen. She re- 
mained near the door, with her heart thumping be- 
neath her bodice ; aijd she was very glad that his 
back was turned, for it seemed to her that she could 
more easily address herself to this portion of his 
person than to his face. At last slie began, watch- 
ing it w’hile she spoke : 

“You told me that if I should have anything 
more to say about Mr. Townsend you would be glad 
to listen to it.” 

“ Exactly, my dear,” said the Doctor, not turning 
round, but stopping his pen. 

Catherine wished it would go on, but she herself 
continued : I thought I would tell you that I 


184 


WASHINGTON SQUARE. 


have not seen him again, but that I should like to 
do so.” 

“ To bid him good-bye asked the Doctor. 

The girl hesitated a moment. “ He is not going 
away.” 

The Doctor wheeled slowly round in his chair, 
with a smile that seemed to accuse her of an 
epigram; but extremes meet, and Catherine had 
not intended one. It is not to bid him good-bye, 
then ?” her father said. 

“ JSTo, father, not that ; at least not forever. I 
have not seen him again, but I should like to see 
him,” Catherine repeated. 

The Doctor slowly rubbed his underlip with the 
feather of his quill. 

“ Have you written to him ?” 

“ Yes, four times.” 

“ You have not dismissed him, then. Once would 
have done that.” 

‘‘ Ho,” said Catherine ; “I have asked him — asked 
him to wait.” 

Her father sat looking at her, and she was afraid 
he was going to break out into wrath, his eyes were 
so fine and cold. 

“ You are a dear, faithful child,” he said, at last. 
“ Come here to your father.” And he got up, hold- 
ing out his hands toward her. 

The words were a surprise, and they gave her an 
exquisite joy. She went to him, and he put his arm 
round her tenderly, soothingly ; and then he kissed 
her. After this he said, • 

‘‘ Do you wish to make me very happy ?” 

“ I should like to — but I am afraid I can’t,” Cathe- 
rine answered. 


WASHINGTON SQUARE. 


135 


“You can if you will. It all depends on your 
will.” 

“ Is it to give him up ?” said Catherine. 

“Yes, it is to give him up.” 

And he held her still, with the same tenderness, 
looking into her face and resting his eyes on her 
averted eyes. There was a long silence ; she wished 
he would release her. 

“ You are happier than I, father,” she said, at last. 

“ I have no doubt you are unhappy just now. 
But it is better to be unhappy for three months and 
get over it, than for many years and never get over 
it.” 

“ Yes, if that were so,” said Catherine. 

“ It would be so ; I am sure of that.” She an- 
swered nothing, and he went on : “ Have you no 
faith in my wisdom, in my tenderness, in my solici- 
tude for your future ?” 

“ Oh, father !” murmured the girl. 

“ Don’t you suppose that I know something of 
men — their vices, their follies, their falsities ?” 

She detached herself, and turned upon him. “ He 
is not vicious — he is not false !” 

Her father kept looking at her with his sharp, 
pure eye. “You make nothing of my judgment, 
then 

“ I can’t believe that !” 

“ I don’t ask you to believe it, but to take it on 
trust.” 

Catherine was far from saying to herself that this 
was an ingenious -sophism ; but she met the appeal 
none the less squarely. “ What has he done — what 
do you know ?” 


136 


WASHINGTON SQUARE. 


“He has never done anything — he is a selfish 
idler.” 

“ Oh, father, don’t abuse him !” she exclaimed, 
pleadingly. 

“ I don’t mean to abuse him ; it would be a great 
mistake. You may do as you choose,” he added, 
turning away. 

“ I may see him again ?” 

“ J ust as you choose.” 

“ Will you forgive me ?” 

By no means.” 

It will only be for once.” 

“ I don’t know what you mean by once. You 
must either give him up or continue the acquaint- 
ance.” 

“ I wish to explain — to tell him to wait.” 

“ To wait for what ?” 

“ Till you know him better — till you consent.” 

“ Don’t tell him any such nonsense as that. I 
know him well enough, and I shall never consent.” 

“ But we can wait a long time,” said poor Cathe- 
rine, in a tone which was meant to express the hum- 
blest conciliation, but which had upon her father’s 
nerves the effect of an iteration not characterized 
by tact. 

The Doctor answered, however, quietly enough : 
“ Of course ; you can wait till I die, if you like.” 

Catherine gave a cry of natural horror. 

“ Your engagement will have one delightful effect 
upon you ; it will make you extremely impatient for 
that event.” 

Catherine stood staring, and the Doctor enjoyed 
the point he had made. It came to Catherine with 


WASHINGTON SQUARE. 


137 


the force — or rather with the vague impressiveness 
— of a logical axiom which it was not in her prov- 
ince to controvert ; and yet, though it was a scien- 
tific truth, she felt wholly unable to accept it. 

“ I would rather not marry, if that were true,” 
she said. 

“ Give me a proof of it, then ; for it is beyond a 
question that by engaging yourself to Morris Towns- 
end you simply wait for my death.” 

She turned away, feeling sick and faint ; and the 
Doctor went on: “And if you wait for it with im- 
patience, judge, if you please, what Ms eagerness 
will be.” 

Catherine turned it over — her fathers words had 
such an authority for her that her very thoughts 
were capable of obeying him. There was a dread- 
ful ugliness in it, which seemed to glare at her 
through the interposing medium of her own feebler 
reason. Suddenly, however, she had an inspiration 
— she almost knew it to be an inspiration. 

“ If I don’t marry before your death, I will not 
after,” she said. 

To her father, it must be admitted, this seemed 
only another epigram ; and as obstinacy, in unac- 
complished minds, does not usually select such a 
mode of expression, he was the more surprised at 
this wanton play of a fixed idea. 

“ Do you mean that for an impertinence ?” he in- 
quired ; an inquiry of which, as he made it, he quite 
perceived the grossness. 

“An impertinence? Oh, father, what terrible 
things you say !” 


138 


WASHINGTON SQUARE. 


well marry immediately; there is nothing else to 
wait for.” 

For some time Catherine made no answer; but 
finally she said, 

“ I think Morris — little by little — might persuade 
you.” 

“ I shall never let him speak to me again. I dis- 
like him too much.” 

Catherine gave a long, low sigh ; she tried to stifle 
it, for she had made up her mind that it was wrong 
to make a parade of her trouble, and to endeavor to 
act upon her father by the meretricious aid of emo- 
tion. Indeed, she even thought it wrong — in the 
sense of being inconsiderate — to attempt to act upon 
his feelings at all ; her part was to effect some gen- 
tle, gradual change in his intellectual perception of 
poor Morris’s character. But the means of effecting 
such a change were at present shrouded in mystery, 
and she felt miserably helpless and hopeless. She 
had exhausted all arguments, all replies. Her father 
might have pitied her, and in fact he did so ; but he 
was sure he was right. 

There is one thing you can tell Mr. Townsend 
when you see him again,” he said, “that if you 
marry without my consent, I don’t leave you a far- 
thing of money. That will interest him more than 
anything else you can tell him.” 

“ That would be very right,” Catherine answered. 
“ I ought not in that case to have a farthing of your 
money.” 

“ My dear child,” the Doctor observed, laughing, 
“your simplicity is touching. Make that remark, 
in that tone, and with that expression of counte- 


WASHINGTON SQUARE. 


139 


nance, to Mr. Townsend, and take a note of his an- 
swer. It won’t be polite — it will express irritation ; 
and I shall be glad of that, as it will put me in the 
right ; unless, indeed — which is perfectly possible — 
you should like him the better for being rude to you.” 

‘‘He will never be rude to me,” said Catherine, 
gently. 

“ Tell him what I say, all the same.” 

She looked at her father, and her quiet eyes filled 
with tears. 

“ I think I will see him, then,” she murmured, in 
her timid voice. 

“Exactly as you choose.” And he went to the 
door and opened it for her to go out. The move- 
ment gave her a terrible sense of his turning her off. 

“ It will be only once, for the present,” she added, 
lingering a moment. 

“Exactly as you choose,” he repeated, standing 
there with his hand on the door. “ I have told you 
what I think. If you see him, you will be an un- 
grateful, cruel child ; you will have given your old 
father the greatest pain of his life.” 

This was more than the poor girl could bear ; her 
tears overflowed, and she moved toward her grimly 
consistent parent with a pitiful cry. Her hands 
were raised in supplication, but he sternly evaded 
this appeal. Instead of letting her sob out her mis- 
ery on his shoulder, he simply took her by the arm 
and directed her course across the threshold, closing 
the door gently but firmly behind her. After he 
had done so, he remained listening. For a long time 
there was no sound; he knew that she was standing 
outside. He was sorry for her, as I have said ; but 


140 


WASHINGTON SQUARE. 


he was so sure he was right. At last he heard her 
move away, and then her footstep creaked faintly 
upon the stairs. 

The Doctor took several turns round his study, 
with his hands in his pockets, and a thin sparkle, 
possibly of irritation, but partly also of something 
like humor, in his eye. “ By Jove,” he said to him- 
self, I believe she will stick — I believe she will 
stick !” And this idea of Catherine “ sticking ” ap- 
peared to have a comical side, and to offer a prospect 
of entertainment. He determined, as he said to 
himself, to see it out. 


WASHINGTON SQUARE. 


141 


\ 


XIX. 





It was for reasons connected with this determina- 
tion that on tlie morrow he sought a few words of 
private conversation with Mrs. Penniman. He sent 
for her to the library, and he there informed her 
tliat he hoped very much that, as regarded this af- 
fair of Catherine’s, she would mind her and q'’s. 



142 


WASHINGTON SQUARE. 


“ I don’t know what you mean by such an expres- 
sion,” said his sister. “You speak as if I were 
learning the alphabet.” 

“ The alphabet of common-sense is something you 
will never learn,” the Doctor permitted himself to 
respond. 

“Have you called me here to insult me?” Mrs. 
Penniman inquired. 

“Not at all. Simply to advise you. You have 
taken up young Townsend ; that’s your own affair. 
I have nothing to do with your sentiments, your 
fancies, your affections, your delusions ; but what I 
request of you is that you will keep these things to 
yourself. I have explained my views to Catherine ; 
she understands them perfectly, and anything that 
she does further in the way of encouraging Mr. 
Townsend’s attentions will be in deliberate opposi- 
tion to my wishes. Anything that you should do 
in the way of giving her aid and comfort will be — 
permit me the expression — distinctly treasonable. 
You know high -treason is a capital offence: take 
care how you incur the penalty.” 

Mrs. Penniman threw back her head, with a cer- 
tain expansion of the eye which she occasionally 
practiced. “It seems to me that you talk like a 
great autocrat.” 

“ I talk like my daughter’s father.” 

“ Not like your sister’s brother,” cried Lavinia. 

“ My dear Lavinia,” said the Doctor, “ I some- 
times wonder whether I am. your brother, we are 
so extremely different. In spite of differences, how- 
ever, we can, at a pinch, understand each other ; and 
that is the essential thing just now. Walk straight 


WASHINGTON SQUARE. 


143 


with regard to Mr. Townsend ; that’s all I ask. It 
is highly probable you have been corresponding 
with him for the last three weeks — perhaps even 
seeing him. I don’t ask you — you needn’t tell me.” 
He had a moral conviction that she would contrive 
to tell a fib about the matter, which it would disgust 
liim to listen to. “ Whatever you have done, stop 
doing it ; that’s all I wish.” 

“ Don’t you wish also by chance to murder your 
child ?” Mrs. Penniman inquired. 

‘‘ On the contrary, I wish to make her live and be 
happy.” 

‘‘ You will kill her : she passed a dreadful night.” 

“ She won’t die of one dreadful night, nor of a 
dozen. Remember that I am a distinguished phy- 
sician.” 

Mrs. Penniman hesitated a moment ; then she 
risked her retort. “ Your being a distinguished 
physician has not prevented you from already los- 
ing two memhers of your family.” 

She had risked it, but her brother gave her such 
a terribly incisive look — a look so like a surgeon’s 
lancet — that she was frightened at her courage. 
And he answered her, in words that corresponded 
to the look, ‘‘ It may not prevent me, either, from 
losing the society of still another.” 

Mrs. Penniman took herself off with whatever air 
of depreciated merit was at her command, and re- 
paired to Catherine’s room, where the poor girl was 
closeted. She knew all about her dreadful night, 
for the two had met again, the evening before, after 
Catherine left her father. Mrs. Penniman was on 
the landing of the second floor when her niece came 


144 


WASHINGTON SQUARE. 


up-stairs ; it was not remarkable that a person of so 
much subtlety should have discovered that Cathe- 
rine had been shut up with the Doctor. It was still 
less remarkable that she should have felt an extreme 
curiosity to learn the result of this interview, and 
that this sentiment, combined with her great amia- 
bility and generosity, should have prompted her to 
regret the sharp words lately exchanged between 
her niece and herself. As the unhappy girl came 
into sight in the dusky corridor, she made a lively 
demonstration of sympathy. Catherine’s bursting 
heart was equally oblivious ; she only knew that her 
aunt was taking her into her arms. Mrs. Penniman 
drew her into Catherine’s own room, and the two 
women sat there together far into the small hours, 
the younger one with her head on the other’s lap, 
sobbing, and sobbing at first in a soundless, stifled 
manner, and then at last perfectly still. It gratified 
Mrs. Penniman to be able to feel conscientiously 
that this scene virtually removed the interdict which 
Catherine had placed upon her indulging in fur- 
ther communion with Morris Townsend. She was 
not gratified, however, when, in coming back to her 
niece’s room before breakfast, she found that Cathe- 
rine had risen and was preparing herself for this meal. 

“ You should not go to breakfast,” she said; “you 
are not well enough, after your fearful night.” 

“Yes, I am very well, and I am only afraid of 
being late.” 

“ I can’t understand you,” Mrs. Penniman cried. 
“ You should stay in bed for three days.” 

“ Oh, I could never do that,” said Catherine, to 
whom this idea presented no attractions. 


WASHINGTON SQUARE. 


145 


Mrs. Penniman was in despair; and she noted, 
with extreme annoyance, that the trace of the night’s 
tears had completely vanished from Catherine’s eyes. 
She had a most impracticable physique. “ What ef- 
fect do you expect to have upon your father,” her 
aunt demanded, ‘‘if you come plumping down, with- 
out a vestige of any sort of feeling, as if nothing in 
the world had happened ?” 

“ He would not like me to lie in bed,” said Cathe- 
rine, simply. 

“All the more reason for your doing it. How 
else do you expect to move him ?” 

Catherine thought a little. “I don’t know how; 
but not in that way. I wish to be just as usual.” 
And she finished dressing — and, according to her 
aunt’s expression, went plumping down into the pa- 
ternal presence. She was really too modest for con- 
sistent pathos. 

And yet it was perfectly true that she had had a 
dreadful night. Even after Mrs. Penniman left her 
she had had no sleep ; she lay staring at the uncom- 
forting gloom, with her eyes and ears filled with the 
movement with which her father had turned her out 
of his room, and of the words in which he had told 
her that she was a heartless daughter. Her heart 
was breaking; she had heart enough for that. At 
moments it seemed to her that she believed him, and 
that to do what she was doing a girl must indeed be 
bad. She was bad; but she couldn’t help it. She 
would try to appear good, even if her heart were 
perverted ; and from time to time she had a fancy 
that she might accomplish something by ingenious 
concessions to form, though she should persist in 
10 


146 


WASHINGTON SQUARE. 


caring for Morris. Catherine’s ingenuities were in- 
definite, and we are not called upon to expose their 
hollowness. The best of them, perhaps, showed 
itself in that freshness of aspect which was so dis- 
couraging to Mrs. Penniman, who was amazed at the 
absence of haggardness in a young woman who for 
a whole night had lain quivering beneath a father’s 
curse. Poor Catherine was conscious of her fresh- 
ness ; it gave her a feeling about the future which 
rather added to the weight upon her mind. It 
seemed a proof that she was strong and solid and 
dense, and would live to a great age — longer than 
might be generally convenient ; and this idea was 
pressing, for it appeared to saddle her with a pre- 
tension the more, just when the cultivation of any 
pretension was inconsistent with her doing right. 
She wrote that day to Morris Townsend, requesting 
him to come and see her on the morrow, using very 
few words, and explaining nothing. She would ex- 
plain everything face to face. 


XX. 

On the morrow, in the afternoon, she heard his 
voice at the door, and his step in the hall. She re- 
ceived him in the big, bright front -parlor, and she 
instructed the servant that, if any one should call, she 
was particularly engaged. She was not afraid of her 
father’s coming in, for at that hour he was alwaj^s 
driving about town. When Morris stood there be- 
fore her, the first thing that she was conscious of was 


WASHINGTON SQUARE. 


147 


that he was even more beautiful to look at than fond 
recollection had painted him ; the pext was that he 
had pressed her in his arms. When she was free 
again it appeared to her that she had now indeed 
thrown herself into the gulf of detiance, and even, 
for an instant, that she had been married to him. 

He told her that she had been very cruel, and had 
made him very unliappy ; and Catherine felt acute- 
ly the difficulty of her destiny, which forced her to 
give pain in such opposite quarters. But she wish- 
ed that, instead of reproaches, however tender, he 
would give her help ; he was certainly wise enough 
and clever enough to invent some issue from their 
troubles. She expressed this belief, and Morris re- 
ceived the assurance as if he thought it natural ; but 
he interrogated at first — as was natural too — rather 
than committed himself to marking out a course. 

‘^You should not have made me wait so long,” he 
said. ‘‘ I don’t know how I have been living ; every 
hour seemed like years. You should have decided 
sooner.” 

“ Decided ?” Catherine asked. 

‘‘Decided whether you would keep me or give 
me up.” 

“ Oh, Morris,” she cried, with a long, tender mur- 
mur, “ I never thought of giving you up !” 

“ What, then, were you waiting for ?” The young 
man was ardently logical. 

“I thought my father might — might — ” and she 
hesitated. 

“ Might see how unhappy you were ?” 

“Oh no. But that he might look at it differ- 
ently.” 


148 


WASHINGTON SQUARE. 


‘‘And now yon have sent for me to tell me that 
at last he does so. Is that it 

This hypothetical optimism gave the poor girl a 
pang. “ No, Morris/’ she said, solemnly, “he looks 
at it still in the same way.” 

“ Then why have yon sent for me ?” 

“Becanse I wanted to see yon,” cried Catherine, 
piteonsly. 

“ That’s an excellent reason, snrely. Bnt did yon 
want to look at me only ? Have yon nothing to tell 
me?” 

His beantiful persnasive eyes were fixed upon her 
face, and she wondered what answer wonld be noble 
enough to make to such a gaze as that. For a mo- 
ment her own eyes took it in, and then — “ I did 
want to look at yon,” she said, gently. Bnt after 
this speech, most inconsistently, she hid her face. 

Morris watched her for a moment attentively. 
“ Will yon marry me to-morrow ?” he asked, snd- 
denly. 

“ To-morrow?” 

“ Next week, then — any time within a month?” 

“Isn’t it better to wait ?” said Catherine. 

“ To wait for what ?” 

She hardly knew for what ; but this tremendous 
leap alarmed her. “ Till we have thought about it 
a little more.” 

He shook his head sadly and reproachfully. “I 
thought you had been thinking about it these three 
weeks. Do you want to turn it over in your mind 
for five years ? Yon have given me more than time 
enough. My poor girl,” he added, in a moment, 
“yon are not sincere.” 


WASHINGTON SQUARE. 


149 


Catherine colored from brow to chin, and her 
eyes filled with tears. Oh, how can you say that ?” 
she murmured. 

“ Why, you must take me or leave me,” said Mor- 
ris, very reasonably. ‘‘ You can’t please your father 
and me both ; you must choose between us.” 

“ I have chosen you,” she said, passionately. 

“ Then marry me next week !” 

She stood gazing at him. “Isn’t there any other 
way ?” 

“Hone that I know of for arriving at the same 
result. If there is, I should He happy to hear of it.” 

Catherine could think of nothing of the kind, and 
Morris’s luminosity seemed almost pitiless. The 
only thing she could think of was that her father 
might, after all, come round ; and she articulated, 
with an awkward sense of her helplessness in doing 
so, a wish that this miracle might happen. 

“ Do you think it is in the least degree likely ?” 
Morris asked. 

“ It would be, if he could only know you.” 

“ He can know me if he will. What is to pre- 
vent it ?” ^ . 

“ His ideas, his reasons,” said Catherine. “ They 
are so — so terribly strong.” She trembled with the 
recollection of them yet. 

“Strong!” cried Morris. “I would rather you 
should think them weak.” 

“ Oh, nothing about my father is weak,” said the 
girl. 

Morris turned away, walking to the window, where- 
he stood looking out. “ You are terribly afraid of 
him,” he remarked at last. 


150 


WASHINGTON SQUARE. 


She felt no impulse to deny it, because she had no 
shame in it ; for, if it was no honor to herself, at 
least it was an honor to him. ‘‘I suppose I must 
be,” she said, simply. 

Then you don’t love me — not as I love you. If 
you fear your father more than you love me, then 
your love is not what I hoped it was.” 

‘‘ Ah, my friend !” she said, going to him. 

“Do I fear anything?” he demanded, turning 
round on her. “ For your sake what am I not ready 
to face ?” 

“You are noble — you are brave!” she answered, 
stopping short at a distance that was almost re- 
spectful. 

“ Small good it does me, if you are so timid.” 

“ I don’t think I am — really said Catherine. 

“ I don’t know what you mean by ‘ really.’ It is 
really enough to make us miserable.” 

“I should be strong enough to wait — to wait a 
long time.”^- ^ PX-C- ' • ■ - 

“ And suppose after a long time your father should 
hate me worse than ever ?” 

“ He wouldn’t — he couldn’t.” 

“He would be touched by my fidelity; is that 
what you mean ? If he is so easily touched, then 
why should you be afraid of him ?” 

This w^as much to the point, and Catherine was 
struck by it. “I will try not to be,” she said. 
And she stood there submissively, the image, in ad- 
vance, of a dutiful and responsible wife. This image 
could not fail to recommend itself to Morris Towns- 
end, and he continued to give proof of the high es- 
timation in which he held her. It could only have 


WASHINGTON SQUARE. 


151 


been at the prompting of such a sentiment that he 
presently mentioned to her that the course recom- 
mended by Mrs. Penniman was an immediate union, 
regardless of consequences. 

“ Yes, Aunt Penniman would like that,” Cathe- 
rine said, simply, and yet with a certain shrewdness. 
It must, however, have been in pure simplicity, and 
from motives quite untouched by sarcasm, that a 
few moments after she went on to say to Morris 
that her father had given her a message for him. It 
was quite on her conscience to deliv^er this message, 
and had the mission been ten times more painful, 
she would have as scrupulously performed it. He 
told me to tell you — to tell you very distinctly, and 
directly from himself — that if I marry without his 
consent, I shall not inherit a penny of his fortune. 
He made a great point of this. He seemed to think 
— he seemed to think — ” 

Morris flushed, as any young man of spirit might 
have flushed at an imputation of baseness. “ What 
did he seem to think 

That it would make a difference.” 

“It will make a difference — in many things. We 
shall be by many thousands of dollars the poorer ; 
and that is a great difference. But it will make 
none in my affection.” 

“We shall not want the money,” said Catherine; 
“ for you know I have a good deal myself.” 

“Yes, my dear girl, I know you have something. 
And he can’t touch that.” 

“ He would never,” said Catherine. “ My mother 
left it to me.” 

Morris was silent awhile. “He was very positive 


152 


WASHINGTON SQUARE. 


about this, was he he asked at last. “ He thought 
such a message would annoy me terribly, and make 
me throw off the mask, eh 

“ I don’t know what he thought,” said Catherine, 
sadly. 

“Please tell him that I care for his message as 
much as for that !” and Morris snapped his fingers 
sonorously. 

“I don’t think I could tell him that.” 

“ Do you know you sometimes disappoint me,” 
said Morris. 

“ I should think I might. I disappoint every one 
— father and Aunt Penniman.” 

“Well, it doesn’t matter with me, because I am 
fonder of you than they are.” 

“ Yes, Morris,” said the girl, with her imagination 
— what there was of it — swimming in this happ}- 
truth, which seemed, after all, invidious to no one. 

“ Is it your belief that he will stick to it — stick to 
it forever — to this idea of disinheriting you ? — that 
your goodness and patience will never wear out his 
cruelty ?” 

“ The trouble is that if I marry you he will think 
I am not good. He will think that a proof.” 

“ Ah, then he will never forgive you !” 

This idea, sharply expressed by Morris’s hand- 
some lips, renewed for a moment to the poor girl’s 
temporarily pacified conscience all its dreadful viv- 
idness. “Oh, you must love me very much!” she 
cried. 

“ There is no doubt of that, my dear,” her lover 
rejoined. “ You don’t like that word ‘ disinherit- 
ed,’ ” he added, in a moment. 


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MY DEAK GOOD GIRL HE EXCLAIMED, LOOKING DOWN AT HIS PRIZE, 
AND THEN HE LOOKED UP AGAIN, RATHER VAGUELY. 



WASHINGTON SQUARE. 155 

‘‘ It isn’t the money ; it is that he should — that he 
should feel so.” 

“ I suppose it seems to yon a kind of curse ?” said 
Morris. “ It must be very dismal. Bat don’t you 
think,” he went on, presently, “ that if you were 
to try to be very clever, and to set rightly about it, 
you might in the end conjure it away ? Don’t you 
think,” he continued further, in a tone of sympa- 
thetic speculation, “ that a really clever woman, in 
your place, might bring him round at last ? Don’t 
you think — ” 

Here, suddenly, Morris was interrupted ; these in- 
genious inquiries had not reached Catherine’s ears. 
The terrible word disinheritance, with all its im- 
pressive moral reprobation, was still ringing there — 
seemed, indeed, to gather force as it lingered. The 
mortal chill of her situation struck more deeply into 
her childlike heart, and she was overwhelmed by a 
feeling of loneliness and danger. But her refuge 
was there, close to her, and she put out her hands to 
grasp it. “ Ah, Morris,” she said, with a shudder, 
“ I will marry you as soon as you please !” and she 
surrendered herself, leaning her head on his shoulder. 

“ My dear good girl !” he exclaimed, looking down 
at his prize. And then he looked up again, rather 
vaguely, with parted lips and lifted eyebrows. 


156 


WASHINGTON SQUARE. 




XXI. 

Doctor Sloper very soon imparted his conviction 
to Mrs. Almond in the same terms in which he had 
announced it to himself. “ She’s going to stick, by 
Jove! she’s going to stick.” 

‘‘ Do you mean that she is going to marry him ?” 
Mrs. Almond inquired. 

I don’t know that ; but she. is not going to break 
down. She is going to drag out the engagement, in 
the hope of making me relent.” 

“ And shall you not relent ?” 

“ Shall a geometrical proposition relent ? I am 
not so superficial.” 

Doesn’t geometry treat of surfaces ?” asked Mrs. 
Almond, who, as we know, was clever, smiling. 

‘‘Yes, but it treats of them profoundly. Cathe- 
rine and her young man are my surfaces; I have 
taken their measure.” 

“ You speak as if it surprised you.” 

‘^It is immense ; there will be a great deal to ob- 
serve.” 

‘‘You are shockingly cold-blooded!” said Mrs. 
Almond. 

“ I need to be, with all this hot blood about me. 
Young Townsend, indeed, is cool ; I must allow him 
tliat merit.” 

“ I can’t judge him,” Mrs. Almond answered ; 
“ but I am not at all surprised at Catherine.” 


WASHINGTON SQUARE. 157 

“ I confess I am a little ; she must have been so 
deucedly divided and bothered.” 

“ Say it amuses you outright. I don’t see why it 
should be such a joke that your daughter adores 
you.” 

“ It is the point where the adoration stops that I 
find it interesting to fix.” 

“ It stops where the other sentiment begins.” 

“ ISTot at all that would be simple enough. The 
two things are extremely mixed up, and the mixture 
is extremely odd. It will produce some third ele- 
ment, and that’s what I’m waiting to see. I wait 
with suspense — with positive excitement ; and that 
is a sort of emotion that I didn’t suppose Catherine 
would ever provide for me. I am really very much 
obliged to her.” 

“ She will cling,” said Mrs. Almond ; “ she will 
certainly cling.” 

“ Yes, as I say, she will stick.” 

Cling is prettier. That’s what those very sim- 
ple natures always do, and nothing could be sim- 
pler than Catherine. She doesn’t take many impres- 
sions ; but when she takes one, she keeps it. '^^She is 
like a copper kettle that receives a dent : you may 
polish up the kettle, but you can’t efface the mark.” 

‘‘We must try and polish up Catherine,” said the 
Doctor. “ I will take her to Europe !” 

“ She won’t forget him in Europe.” 

“ He will forget her, then.” 

Mrs. Almond looked grave. “ Should you really 
like that?” 

“ Extremely,” said the Doctor. 

Mrs. Penniman, meanwhile, lost little time in put- 


158 


WASHINGTON SQUARE. 


ting lierself again in communication with Morris 
Townsend. She requested him to favor her with 
another interview, hut she did not on this occasion 
select an oyster saloon as the scene of their meeting. 
She proposed that he should join her at the door of 
a certain church after service on Sunday afternoon ; 
and she was careful not to apipoint the place of wor- 
ship which she usually visited, and where, as she 
said, the congregation would have spied upon her. 
She picked out a less elegant resort, and on issuing 
from its portal at the hour she had fixed she saw the 
young man standing apart. She offered him no rec- 
ognition until she had crossed the street, and he had 
followed her to some distance. Here, with a smile, 
“ Excuse my apparent want of cordiality,” she said. 
“ You know what to believe about that. Prudence 
before everything.” And on his asking her in what 
direction they should walk, ‘‘Where we shall be least 
observed,” she murmured. 

Morris was not in high good -humor, and his re- 
sponse to this speech was not particularly gallant. 
“ I don’t flatter myself we shall be much observed 
anywhere.” Then he turned recklessly toward the 
centre of the town. “ I hope you have come to tell 
me that he has knocked under,” he went on. 

“ I am afraid I am not altogether a harbinger of 
good ; and yet, too, I am to a certain extent a mes- 
senger of peace. I have been thinking a great deal, 
Mr. Townsend,” said Mrs. Penniman. 

“ You think too much.” 

“ I suppose I do ; but I can’t help it, my mind is 
so terribly active. When I give myself, I give my- 
self. I pay the penalty in my headaches,^ my fa- 


WASHINGTON SQUARE. 


159 


mous headaches— a perfect circlet of pain ! But I 
carry it as a queen carries her crown. Would you 
believe that I have one now ? I wouldn’t, however, 
have missed our rendezvous for anything. I have 
something very important to tell you.” 

“ Well, let’s have it,” said Morris. 

“ I was perhaps a little headlong the other day in 
advising you to marry immediately. I have been 
thinking it over, and now I see it just a little differ- 
ently.” 

You seem to have a great many different ways 
of seeing the same object.” 

Their number is infinite !” said Mrs. Penniman, 
in a tone which seemed to suggest that this conven- 
ient faculty was one of her brightest attributes. 

‘‘ I recommend you to take one way, and stick to 
it,” Morris replied. 

“Ah, but it isn’t easy to choose. My imagina- 
tion is never quiet, never satisfied. It makes me a 
bad adviser, perhaps, but it makes me a capital 
friend.” 

“ A capital friend who gives bad advice !” said 
Morris. 

“ ISTot intentionally — and who hurries off, at every 
risk, to make the most humble excuses.” 

“ Well, what do you advise me now ?” 

“ To be very patient ; to watch and wait.” 

“And is that bad advice or good ?” 

“ That is not for me to say,” Mrs. Penniman re- 
joined, with some dignity. “I only claim it is sin- 
cere.” 

“And will you come to me next week and recom- 
mend something different and equally sincere?” 


160 


WASHINGTON SQUARE. 


I may come to you next week, and tell you that 
I am in the streets.’’ 

‘‘ In the streets ?” 

“ I have had a terrible scene with my brother, 
and he threatens, if anything happens, to turn me 
out of the house. You know I am a poor woman.” 

Morris had a speculative idea that she had a little 
property ; but he naturally did not press this. 

“I should be very sorry to see you suffer martyr- 
dom for me,” he said. “ But you make your broth- 
er out a regular Turk.” 

Mrs. Penninian hesitated a little. 

“ I certainly do not regard Austin as an orthodox 
Christian.” 

And am I to wait till he is converted ?” 

“ Wait at any rate till he is less violent. Bide your 
time, Mr. Townsend ; remember the prize is great.” 

Morris walked along some time in silence, tap- 
ping the railings and gate-posts very sharply with 
his stick. 

‘‘ You certainly are devilish inconsistent !” he 
broke out at last. “I have already got Catherine 
to consent to a private marriage.” 

Mrs. Penniman. was indeed inconsistent, for at 
this news she gave a little jump of gratification. 

“ Oh, when and where ?” she cried. And then 
she stopped short. 

Morris was a little vague about this. 

“ That isn’t fixed ; but she consents. It’s deuced 
awkward now to back out.” 

Mrs. Penniman, as I say, had stopped short ; and 
she stood there with her eyes fixed brilliantly on her 
companion. 


WASHINGTON ^ 


Ml’. Townsend,” she proceeded, 
something. Catherine loves you so miici* 
may do anything.” 

This declaration was slightly ambiguous, and Moi 
ris opened his eyes. 

“ I am happy to hear it. But what do you mean 
by ‘ anything V ” 

“You may postpone — you may change about; 
she won’t think the worse of you.” 

Morris stood there still, with his raised eyebrows ; 
then he said, simply and rather dryly, “Ah!” Af- 
ter this he remarked to Mrs. Penniman that if she 
walked so slowly she would attract notice, and he 
succeeded, after a fashion, in hurrying her back to 
the domicile of which her tenure had become so in- 
secure. 


XXII. 

He had slightly misrepresented the matter in say- 
ing that Catherine had consented to take the great 
step. We left her just now declaring that she 
would burn her ships behind her; but Morris, after 
having elicited this declaration, had become con- 
scious of good reasons for not taking it up. He 
avoided, gracefully enough, fixing a day, though he 
left her under the impression that he had his eye on 
one. Catherine may have had her difficulties ; but 
those of her circumspect, suitor are also worthy of 
consideration. The prize was certainly great ; but 
it was only to be won by striking the happy mean 
between precipitancy and caution. It would be all 
11 


.xsGTON SQUARE. 


take one’s jump and trust to Provi- 
. rovidence was more especially on the side 
.ever people, and clever people were known by 
an indisposition to risk their bones. 

The ultimate reward of a union with a young 
woman who was both unattractive and impoverished 
ought to be connected with immediate disadvantages 
by some very palpable chain. Between the fear of 
losing Catherine and her possible fortune altogether, 
and the fear of taking her too soon and finding this 
possible fortune as void of actuality as a collection 
of emptied bottles, it was not comfortable for Morris 
Townsend to choose — a fact that should be remem- 
bered by readers disposed to judge harshly of a 
young man wdio may have struck them as making 
but an indifferently successful use of fine natural 
parts. He had not forgotten that in any event 
Catherine had her own ten thousand a year ; he had 
devoted an abundance of meditation to this circum- 
stance. But with his fine parts he rated himself 
high, and he had a perfect!}^ definite appreciation of 
his value, which seemed to him inadequately repre* 
sented by the sum I have mentioned. At the same 
time he reminded himself that this sum was consid- 
erable, that everything is relative, and that if a mod- 
est income is less desirable than a large one, the 
complete absence of revenue is nowhere accounted 
an advantage. 

These reflections gave him plenty of occupation, 
and made it necessary that he should trim his sail. 
Doctor Sloper’s opposition was the unknown quan- 
tity in the problem he had to work out. The nat- 
ural way to work it out was by marrying Catherine ; 


WASHINGTON SQUARE. 


lb. 


but in mathematics there are many tehort cuts, and 
Morris was not without a hope that he should yet 
discover one. AVhen Catherine took him at his 
word, and consented to renounce the attempt to 
mollify her father, he drew back skilfully enough, 
as I have said, and kept the wedding-day still an 
open question. Her faith in his sincerity was so 
complete that she was incapable of suspecting that 
he was playing with her; her trouble just now was 
of another kind. The poor girl had an admirable 
sense of honor, and from the moment she had 
brought herself to the point of violating her father’s 
wish, it seemed to her that she had no right to enjoy 
his protection. It was on her conscience that she 
ought to live under his roof only so long as she 
conformed to his wisdom. There was a great deal 
of glory in such a position, but poor Catherine felt 
that she had forfeited her claim to it. She had cast 
her lot with a young man against whom he had sol- 
emnly warned her, and broken the contract under 
which he provided her with a happy home. She 
could not give up the young man, so she mast leave 
the home; and the sooner the object of her prefer- 
ence offered her another, the sooner her situation 
would lose its awkward twist. This was close rea- 
soning; but it was commingled with an infinite 
amount of merely instinctive penitence. Cathe- 
rine’s days, at this time, were dismal, and the weight 
of some of her hours was almost more than she could 
bear. Her father never looked at her, never spoke 
to her. He knew perfectly what he was about, and 
this was part of a plan. She looked at him as much 
as she dared (for she was afraid of seeming to offer 


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^d4 

herself to liis observation), and she pitied him for 
the sorrow she had brought upon him. She held up 
her head and busied her hands, and went about her 
daily occupations ; and when the state of things in 
Washington Square seemed intolerable, she closed 
her eyes and indulged herself with an intellectual 
vision of the man for whose sake she had broken a 
sacred law. 

Mrs. Pen ni man, of the three persons in Washing- 
ton Square, had much the most of the manner that 
belongs to a great crisis. If Catherine was quiet, 
she was quietly quiet, as I may say, and her pathetic 
effects, which there was no one to notice, were en- 
tirely unstudied and unintended. If the Doctor was 
stiff and dry, and absolutely indifferent to the pres- 
ence of his companions, it was so lightly, neatly, easi- 
ly done, that you would have had to know him well 
to discover that, on the whole, he rather enjo3^ed 
having to be so disagreeable. But Mrs. Penniman 
was elaborately reserved and significantly silent ; 
there was a richer rustle in the very deliberate 
movements to which she confined herself, and when 
she occasionally spoke, in connection with some very 
trivial event, she had the air of meanine: somethino: 
deeper than what she said. Between Catherine and 
her father nothing had passed since the evening she 
went to speak to him in his study. She had some- 
thing to say to him — it seemed to her she ought to 
say it — but she kept it back for fear of irritating 
him. He also had something to say to her; but he 
was determined not to speak first. He was inter- 
ested, as we know, in seeing how, if she w^ere left to 
herself, she would “ stick.” At last she told him 


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slie had seen Morris Townsend again, and that their 
relations remained quite the same. 

I think we shall marry — before very long. And 
probably, meanwhile, I shall see him rather often 
about once a week — not more.” 

The Doctor looked at her coldly from head to 
foot, as if she had been a stranger. It was the first 
time his eyes had rested on her for a week, which 
was fortunate, if that was to be their expression. 
“Why not three times a day?” he asked. “What 
prevents your meeting as often as you choose ?” 

She turned away a moment; there were tears in 
her eyes. Then she said, “ It is better once a week.” 

“I don’t see how it is better. It is as bad as it 
can be. If you fiatter yourself that I care for little 
modifications of that sort, you are very much mis- 
taken. It is as wrong of you to see him once a week 
as it would be to see him all day long. Not that it 
matters to me, however.” 

Catherine tried to follow these words, but they 
seemed to lead toward a vague horror from which 
she recoiled. “ I think we shall marry pretty soon,” 
she repeated, at last. 

Her father gave her his dreadful look again, as if 
she were some one else. “Why do you tell me that ? 
It’s no concern of mine.” 

“ Oh, father,” she broke out, “ don’t you care, even 
if you do feel so ?” 

“Not a button. Once you marry, it’s quite the 
same to me when, or where, or why you do it ; and 
if you think to compound for your folly by hoisting 
your fiy in this way, you may spare yourself the 
trouble.” 


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With this he turned awaj. But the next daj he 
spoke to her of his own accord, and his manner was 
somewhat changed. “ Shall you be married within 
the next four or five months?” he asked. 

“ I don’t know, father,” said Catherine. “ It is 
not very easy for ns to make up our minds.” 

‘‘Put it ofi, then, for six months, and in the mean 
time I will take you to Europe. I should like you 
very much to go.” 

It gave her such delight, after his words of the 
day before, to hear that he should “ like ” her to do 
something, and that he still had in his heart any of 
the tenderness of preference, that she gave a little 
exclamation of joy. But then she became conscious 
that Morris was not included in this proposal, and 
that — as regards really going — she would greatly 
prefer to remain at home with him. But she blush- 
ed none the less more comfortably than she had 
done of late. “It would be delightful to go to 
Europe,” she remarked, with a sense that the idea 
was not original, and that her tone was not all it 
might be. 

“Very well, then, we will go. Pack up your 
clothes.” 

“ I had better tell Mr. Townsend,” said Catherine. 

Her father fixed his cold eyes upon her. “ If you 
mean that you had better ask his leave, all that re- 
mains to me is to hope he will give it.” 

The girl was sharply touched by the pathetic ring 
of the words ; it was the most calculated, the most 
dramatic little speech the Doctor had ever uttered. 
She felt that it was a great thing for her, under the 
circumstances, to have this fine opportunity of show- 


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ing him lier respect ; and jet there was something 
else that she felt as well, and that she presently ex- 
pressed. “I sometimes think that if I do what you 
dislike so much, I ought not to stay with you.” 

‘‘To stay with me 

“ If I live with you, I ought to obey you.” 

“ If that’s 3^our theory, it’s certainly mine,” said 
the Doctor, with a dry laugh. 

“ But if I don’t obey you, I ought not to live with 
you — to enjoy your kindness and protection.” 

This striking argument gave the Doctor a sud- 
den sense of having underestimated his daughter; 
it seemed even more than worthy of a young wom- 
an who had revealed the quality of unaggressive 
obstinacy. But it displeased him — displeased him 
deeply, and he signified as much. “ That idea is in 
very bad taste,” he said. “ Did you get it from Mr. 
Townsend ?” 

‘‘Oh no; it’s my own,” said Catherine, eagerly. 

“ Keep it to yourself, then,” her father answered, 
more than ever determined she should go to Eu- 
rope. 


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XXIII. 

If Morris Townsend was not to be included in 
this journey, no more was Mrs. Penniinan, who 
would have been thankful for an invitation, but 
who (to do her justice) bore her disappointment in 
a perfectly lady-like manner. “ I should enjoy see- 
ing the works of Raphael and the ruins — the ruins of 
the Pantheon,” she said to Mrs. Almond ; “ but, on 
the other hand, I shall not be sorry to be alone and 
at peace for the next few months in Washington 
Square. I want rest ; I have -been tlirough so much 
in the last four months.” Mrs. Almond thought it 
rather cruel that her brother should not take poor 
Lavinia abroad ; but she easily understood that, if 
the purpose of his expedition was to make Catherine 
forget her lover, it was not in his interest to give his 
daughter this young man’s best friend as a compan- 
ion. “ If Lavinia had not been so foolish, she might 
visit the ruins of the Pantheon,” she said to herself ; 
and she continued to regret her sister’s folly, even 
though the latter assured her that she had often 
heard the relics in question most satisfactorily de- 
scribed by Mr. Pen ni man. Mrs. Penniinan was per- 
fectly aware that her brother’s motive in undertak- 
ing a foreign tour was to lay a trap for Catherine’s 
constancy ; and she imparted this conviction very 
frankly to her niece. 

“ He thinks it will make you forget Morris,” she 


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said (she always called the young man ‘‘Morris’^ 
now) : “ out of sight, out of mind, you know. He 
thinks that all the things you will see over there 
will drive him out of your thoughts.” 

Catherine looked greatly alarmed. ‘‘ If he thinks 
that, I ought to tell him beforehand.” 

Mrs. Penniman shook her head. “ Tell him after- 
ward, my dear — after he has had all the trouble and 
expense. That’s the way to serve him.” And she 
added, in a softer key, that it must be delightful to 
think of those who love us among the ruins of the 
Pantheon. 

Her father’s displeasure had cost the girl, as we 
know, a great deal of deep- welling sorrow — sorrow of 
the purest and most generous kind, without a touch 
of resentment or rancor; but for the first time, after 
he had dismissed with such contemptuous brevity her 
apology for being a charge upon him, there was a spark 
of anger in her grief. She had felt his contempt ; 
it had scorched her ; that speech about her bad taste 
had made her ears burn for three days. During this 
period she was less considerate ; she had an idea — a 
rather vague one, but it was agreeable to her sense 
of injury — that now she was absolved from penance, 
and might do what she chose. She chose to write 
to Morris Townsend to meet her in the Square and 
take her to walk about the town. If she were go- 
ing to Europe out of respect to her father, she might 
at least give herself this satisfaction. She felt in 
every way at present more free and more reso- 
lute ; there was a force that urged her. How at 
last, completely and unreservedly, her passion pos- 
sessed her. 


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Morris met her at last, and they took a long walk. 
She told him immediately what had happened ; that 
her father wished to take her away — it would be for 
six months — to Europe; she would do absolutely 
what Morris should think best. She hoped inex- 
pressibly that he would think it best she should stay 
at home. It was some time before he said what he 
thought ; he asked, as they walked along, a great 
many questions. There was one that especially 
struck her ; it seemed so incongruous. 

“ Should you like to see all those celebrated things 
over there ?” 

Oh no, Morris !” said Catherine, quite deprecat- 
ingly. 

‘‘ Gracious Heaven, what a dull woman !” Morris 
exclaimed to himself. 

“ He thinks I will forget you,” said Catherine ; 
“ that all these things will drive you out of my 
mind.” 

“ Well, my dear, perhaps they will.” 

“ Please don’t say that,” Catherine answered, gen- 
tly, as they walked along. “ Poor father will be dis- 
appointed.” 

Morris gave a little laugh. “ Yes, I verily believe 
that your poor father will be disappointed. But 
you will have seen Europe,” he added, humorously. 
“ What a take-in !” 

“ I don’t care for seeing Europe,” Catherine said. 

“You ought to care, my dear; and it may mol- 
lify your father.” 

Catherine, conscious of her obstinacjq expected lit- 
tle of this, and could not rid herself of the idea that 
in going abroad and yet remaining firm, she should 


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171 


play her father a trick. Don’t you think it would 
be a kind of deception ?” she asked. 

Doesn’t he want to deceive you ?” cried Morris. 
‘‘ It will serve him right. I really think you had 
better go.” 

“And not be married for so long?” 

“ Be married when you come back. You can buy 
your wedding-clothes in Paris.” And then Morris, 
with great kindness of tone, explained his view of 
the matter. It would be a good thing that she 
should go; it would put them completely in the 
right. It would show they were reasonable, and 
willing to wait. Once they were so sure of each 
other, they could afford to wait — what had they to 
fear ? If there was a particle of chance that her 
father would be favorably affected by her going, 
that ought to settle it; for, after all, Morris was very 
unwilling to be the cause of her being disinherited. 
It was not for himself, it was for her and for her 
children. He was willing to wait for her ; it would 
be hard, but he could do it. And over there, among 
beautiful scenes and noble monuments, perhaps the 
old gentleman would be softened ; such things were 
supposed to exert a humanizing influence. He 
might be touched by her gentleness, her patience, 
her willingness to make any sacrifice but that one ; 
and if she should appeal to him some day, in some 
celebrated spot — in Italy, say, in the evening ; in 
Venice, in a gondola, by moonlight — if she should 
be a little clever about it, and touch the right chord, 
perhaps he would fold her in his arms, and tell her 
that he forgave her. Catherine was immensely 
struck with this conception of the affair, which 


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seemed eminently worthy of her lover’s brilliant in- 
tellect, though she viewed it askance in so far as it 
depended upon her own powers of execution. The 
idea of being “clever” in a gondola by moonlight 
appeared to her to involve elements of which her 
grasp was not active. But it was settled between 
them that she should tell her father that she was 
ready to follow him obediently anywdiere, making 
the mental reservation that she loved Morris Towns- 
end more than ever. 

She informed the Doctor she was ready to em- 
bark, and he made rapid arrangements for this 
event. Catherine had many farewells to make, but 
with only two of them are w^e activel}^ concerned. 
Mrs. Penniman took a discriminating view of her 
niece’s journey ; it seemed to her very proper that 
Mr. Townsend’s destined bride should wish to em- 
bellish her mind by a foreign tour. 

“ You leave him in good hands,” she said, press- 
ing her lips to Catherine’s forehead. (She was very 
fond of kissing people’s foreheads ; it was an invol- 
untary expression of sympathy with the intellectual 
part.) “ I shall see him often ; I shall feel like one 
of the vestals of old tending the sacred flame.” ^ / 

“You behave beautifully about not going with 
us,” Catherine answered, not presuming to examine 
this analogy. 

“ It is my pride that keeps me up,” said Mrs. Pen- 
niman, tapping the body of her dress, which always 
gave forth a sort of metallic ring. ^ ' 

Catherine’s parting with her lover was short, and 
few words were exchanged. 

“Shall I And you just the same when I come 


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173 


back?” she asked; though the question was not the 
fruit of scepticism. 

“ The same — only more so,” said Morris, smiling. 

It does not enter into our scheme to narrate in 
detail Doctor Sloper’s proceedings in the Eastern 
hemisphere. He made the grand tour of Europe, 
travelled in considerable splendor, and (as was to 
have been expected in a man of his high cultivation) 
found so much in art and antiquity to interest him, 
that he remained abroad, not for six months, but for 
twelve. Mrs. Penniman, in Washington Square, 
accommodated herself to his absence. She enjoyed 
her uncontested dominion in the empty house, and 
flattered herself that she made it more attractive to 
their friends than when her brother was at home. 
To Morris Townsend, at least, it would have appear- 
ed that she made it singularly attractive. He was 
altogether her most frequent visitor, and Mrs. Pen- 
niman was very fond of asking him to tea. He had 
his chair — a very easy one — at the fireside in the 
back parlor (when the great mahogany sliding doors, 
with silver knobs and hinges, which divided this 
apartment from its more formal neighbor, were 
closed), and he used to smoke cigars in the Doctor’s 
study, where he often spent an hour in turning over 
the curious collections of its absent proprietor. He 
thought Mrs. Penniman a goose, as we know; but 
he was no goose himself, and, as a young man of 
luxurious tastes and scanty resources, he found the 
house a perfect castle of indolence. It became for 
him a club with a single member. Mrs. Penniman 
saw much less of her sister than while the Doctor 
was at home; for Mrs. Almond had felt moved to 


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tell her that she disapproved of her relations with 
Mr. Townsend. She had no business to be so 
friendly to a young man of whom their brother 
thought so meanly, and Mrs. Almond was surprised 
at her levity in foisting a most deplorable engage- 
ment upon Catherine. 

“ Deplorable !” cried Lavinia. “ He will make 
her a lovely husband.” 

“I don’t believe in lovely husbands,” said Mrs. 
Almond; believe in ^Qo d ones . ,.If he mar- 

ries her, and she comes into Austin’s riloney, they 
may get on. He will be an idle, amiable, selfish, 
and, doubtless, tolerably good-natured fellow. But 
if she doesn’t get the money, and he finds himself 
tied to her. Heaven have mercy on her! He will 
have none. He will hate her for his disappoint- 
ment, and take his revenge ; he will be pitiless and 
cruel. Woe betide poor Catherine 1 I recommend 
you to talk a little with his sister ; it’s a pity Cathe- 
rine can’t marry her 

Mrs. Penniman had no appetite whatever for 
conversation with Mrs. Montgomery, whose acquaint- 
ance she made no trouble to cultivate ; and the ef- 
fect of this alarming forecast of her niece’s destiny 
was to make her think it indeed a thousand pities 
that Mr. Townsend’s generous nature should be em- 
bittered. Bright enjoyment was his natural ele- 
ment, and how could he be comfortable if there 
should prove to be nothing to enjoy \ It became a 
fixed idea with Mrs. Penniman that he should yet en- 
joy her brother’s fortune, on which she had acuteness 
enough to perceive that her own claim was small. 

“ If he doesn’t leave it to Catherine, it certainly 
won’t be to leave it to me,” she said. 


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175 


XXIY. 

The Doctor, during the first six months he was 
abroad, never spoke to his daughter of their little 
difiPerence, partly on system, and partly because he 
had a great many other things to think about. It 
was idle to attempt to ascertain the state of her af- 
fections without direct inquiry, because if she had 
not had an expressive manner among the familiar 
infiuences of home, she failed to gather animation 
from the mountains of Switzerland or the monu- 
ments of Italy. She was always her father’s docile 
and reasonable associate — going through their sight- 
seeing in deferential silence, never complaining of 
fatigue, always ready to start at the hour he had ap- 
pointed overnight, making no foolish criticisms, and 
indulging in no refinements of appreciation. “ She 
is about as intelligent as the bundle of shawls,” the 
Doctor said, her main superiority being that, while 
the bundle of shawls sometimes got lost, or tumbled 
out of the carriage, Catherine was always at her post, 
and had a firm and ample seat. But her father had 
expected this, and he was not constrained to set 
down her intellectual limitations as a tourist to sen- 
timental depression ; she had completely divested 
herself of the characteristics of a victim, and during 
the whole time that they were abroad she never ut- 
tered an audible sigh. He supposed she was in cor- 
respondence with Morris Townsend, but he held his 


176 


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peace about it, for he never saw the young man’s 
letters, and Catherine’s own missives were always 
given to the courier to post. She heard from her 
lover with considerable regularity, but his letters 
came enclosed in Mrs. Penniman’s ; so that, when- 
ever the Doctor handed her a packet addressed in 
his sister’s hand, he was an involuntary instrument 
of tlie passion he condemned. Catherine made this 
reflection, and six months earlier she would have 
felt bound to give him warning ; but now she deem- 
ed herself absolved. There was a sore spot in her 
heart that his own words had made when once she 
spoke to him as she thought honor prompted ; she 
would try and please him as far as she could, but 
she would never speak that way again. She read 
her lover’s letters in secret. 

One day, at the end of the summer, the two trav- 
ellers found themselves in a lonely valley of the 
Alps. They were crossing one of the passes, and on 
the long ascent they had got out of the carriage and 
had wandered much in advance. After awhile the 
Doctor descried a foot-path which, leading through 
a transverse valley, would bring them out, as he just- 
ly supposed, at a much higher point of the ascent. 
They followed this devious way, and finally lost the 
path ; the valley proved very wild and rough, and 
their walk became rather a scramble. They were 
good walkers, however, and they took their advent- 
ure easily ; from time to time they stopped, that 
Catherine might rest ; and then she sat upon a 
stone and looked about her at the hard-featured 
rocks and the glowing sky. It was late in the after- 
noon, in the last of August ; night was coming on, 


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and as they had reached a great elevation, the air 
was cold and sharp. In the west there was a great 
suffusion of cold red light, which made the sides of 
the little valley look only the more rugged and 
dusky. During one of their pauses her father left 
her and wandered away to some high place, at a dis- 
tance, to get a view. He was out of sight ; she sat 
there alone in the stillness, which was jnst touched 
by the vague murmur somewhere of a mountain 
brook. She thought of Morris Townsend, and the 
place was so desolate and lonely that he seemed very 
far away. Her father remained absent a long time ; 
she began to wonder what had become of him. But 
at last he reappeared, coming toward her in the clear 
twilight, and she got up to go on. He made no mo- 
tion to proceed, however, but came close to her, as 
if he had something to say. He stopped in front 
of her, and stood looking at her with eyes that had 
kept the light of the flushing snow -summits on 
which they had just been flxed. Then, abruptly, in 
a low tone, he asked her an unexpected question, 

“ Have you given him up 

The question was unexpected, but Catherine was 
only superflcially unprepared. 

“ Ho, father,” she answered. 

He looked at her again for some moments with- 
out speaking. 

Does he write to you he asked. 

• “ Yes, about twice a month.” 

The Doctor looked up and down tlie valley, 
swinging his stick ; then he said to her, in the same 
low tone, 

‘‘ I am very angiy.” 


12 


178 


WASHINGTON SQUARE. 


She wondered what he meant — whether he wish- 
ed to frighten her. If he did, the place was well 
chosen : this hard, melancholy dell, abandoned by 
the summer light, made her feel her loneliness. 
She looked around her, and her heart grew cold ; 
for a moment her fear was great. But she could 
think of nothing to say, save to murmur, gently, “ I 
am sorry.” 

“ You try my patience,” her father went on, “ and 
you ought to know what I am. I am not a very 
good man. Though I am very smooth externally, 
at bottom I am very passionate ; and I assure you I 
can be very hard.” 

She could not think why he told her these things. 
Had he brought her there on purpose, and was it 
part of a plan ? What was the plan ? Catherine ask- 
ed herself. Was it to startle her suddenly into a 
retraction — to take an advantage of her by dread? 
Dread of what ? The place was ugly and lonely, 
but the place could do her no harm. There was a 
kind of still intensity about her father which made 
him dangerous, but Catherine hardly w'ent so far as 
to say to herself that it might be part of his plan to 
fasten his hand — the neat, hne, supple hand of a dis- 
tinguished physician — in her throat. Nevertheless, 
she receded a step. “ I am sure you can be anything 
you please,” she said ; and it was her simple belief. 

“ I am very angry,” he replied, more sharply. 

“ Why has it taken you so suddenly ?” 

‘Ht has not taken me suddenly. I have been 
raging inwardly for the last six months. But just 
now this seemed a good place to flare out. It’s so 
quiet, and we are alone.” 


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179 


“Yes, it’s very quiet,” said Catherine, vaguely 
looking about her. “ Won’t you come back to the 
carriage ?” 

“ In a moment. Do you mean that in all this 
time you have not yielded an inch ?” 

“ I would if I could, father ; but I can’t.” 

The Doctor looked round him too. “ Should you 
like to be left in such a place as this, to starve 
What do you mean ?” cried the girl. 

“ That will be your fate — that’s how he will leave 
you.” 

He would not touch her, but he had touched Mor- 
ris. The warmth came back to her heart. “ That 
is not true, father,” she broke out, “ and you ought 
not to say it. It is not right, and it’s not true.” 

He shook his head slowly. “Ho, it’s not right, 
because you won’t believe it. But it is true. Come 
back to the carriage.” 

He turned away, and she followed him ; he went 
faster, and was presently much in advance. But 
from time to time he stopped, without turning 
round, to let her keep up with him, and she made 
her way forward with difficulty, her heart beating 
with the excitement of having for the first time spo- 
ken to him in violence. By this time it had grown 
almost dark, and she ended by losing sight of him. 
But she kept her course, and after a little, the valley 
making a sudden turn, she gained the road, where 
the carriage stood waiting. In it sat her father, 
rigid and silent ; in silence, too, she took her place 
beside him. 

It seemed to her, later, in looking back upon all 
this, that for days afterward not a word had been 


180 


WASHINGTON SQUARE. 


exchario^ed between them. The scene had been a 
strange one, but it had not permanently affected her 
feeling toward her father, for it was natural, after 
all, that he should occasionally make a scene of some 
kind, and he had let her alone for six months. The 
strangest part of it was that he had said he was not 
a good man ; Catherine wondered a good deal what 
he had meant by that. The statement failed to ap- 
peal to her credence, and it was not grateful to any 
resentment that she entertained. Even in the ut- 
most bitterness that she might feel, it would give 
her no satisfaction to think him less complete. Such 
a saying as that was a part of his great subtlety — 
men so clever as he might say anything and mean 
anything ; and as to his being hard, that surely, in 
a man, was a virtue. 

He let her alone for six months more — six months 
during which she accommodated herself without a 
protest to the extension of their tour. But he spoke 
again at the end of this time : it was at the very last, 
the night before they embarked for New York, in 
the hotel at Liverpool. They had been dining to- 
gether in a great, dim, musty sitting-room ; and then 
the cloth had been removed, and the Doctor walked 
slowly up and down. Catherine at last took her 
candle to go to bed, but her father motioned her to 
stay. 

“ What do you mean to do when you get home 
he asked, while she stood there with her candle in 
her hand. 

“ Do you mean about Mr. Townsend 
About Mr. Townsend.” 

“ We shall probably marry.” 


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181 


The Doctor took several turns again wliile she 
waited. “ Do you hear from him as much as ever ?” 

“Yes, twice a month,” said Catherine, promptly. 

“And does he always talk about marriage 

“ Oh yes ; th'at is, he talks about other things too, 
but he always says something about that.” 

“ I am glad to hear he varies his subjects ; his let- 
ters might otherwise be monotonous.” 

“ He writes beautifully,” said Catherine, who was 
very glad of a chance to say it. 

“ They always write beautifully. However, in a 
given case that doesn’t diminish the merit. So, as 
soon as you arrive, you are going off with him ?” 

This seemed a rather gross way of putting it, and 
something that there was of dignity in Catherine 
resented it. “ I cannot tell you till we arrive,” she 
said. 

“ That’s reasonable enough,” her father answered. 
“ That’s all I ask of you — that you do tell me, that 
you give me definite notice. When a poor man is 
to lose his only child, he likes to have an inkling of 
it beforehand.” 

“ Oh, father ! you will not lose me,” Catherine 
said, spilling her candle wax. 

“ Three days before will do,” he went on, “if you 
are in a position to be positive then. He ought to 
be very thankful to me, do you know. I have done 
a mighty good thing for him in taking you abroad ; 
your value is twice as great, with all the knowledge 
and taste that you have acquired. A year ago, you 
were perhaps a little limited — a little rustic; but 
now you have seen everything, and appreciated ev- 
erything, and you will be a most entertaining com- 


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pauion. We have fattened the sheep for him be- 
fore he kills it.” Catherine turned away, and stood 
staring at the blank door. “Go to bed,” said her 
father “ and as we don’t go aboard till noon, you 
may sleep late. We shall probably have a most un- 
comfortable voyage.” 


WASHINGTON SQUARE. 


183 


CHAPTER XXY. 



The voyage was indeed uncomfortable, and Cath- 
erine, on arriving in New York, had not the com- 
pensation of ‘Agoing off,” in her father’s phrase, 
with Morris Townsend. She saw him, however, 
the day after she landed ; and in the mean time he 
formed a natural subject of conversation between 
our heroine and her aunt Lavinia, with whom, the 


184 


WASHINGTON SQUARE. 


night she disembarked, the girl was closeted for a 
long time before either lady retired to rest. 

“ 1 have seen a great deal of him,” said Mrs. Pen- 
niman. “ He is not very easy to know. I suppose 
you think you know him ; but you don’t, my dear. 
You will some day; but it will only be after you 
liave lived with him. I may almost say I have 
lived with him,” Mrs. Penniman proceeded, while 
Catherine stared. “I think I know him now; I 
have had such remarkable opportunities. You will 
have the same — or, rather, you will have better;” 
and Aunt Lavinia smiled. “ Theu you will see 
what I mean. It’s a wonderful character, full of 
passion and energy, and just as true.” 

Catherine listened with a mixture of interest and 
apprehension. Aunt Lavinia was intensely sym- 
pathetic, and Catherine, for the past year, while she 
wandered through foreign galleries and churches, 
and rolled over the smoothness of posting roads, 
nursing the thoughts that never passed her lips, had 
often longed for the company of some intelligent 
person of her own sex. To tell her story to some 
kind woman — at moments it seemed to her that this 
would give her comfort, and she had more than once 
been on the point of taking the landlady, or the nice 
young person from the dress-maker’s, into her con- 
fidence. If a woman had been near her, she would 
on certain occasions have treated such a companion 
to a fit of weeping ; and she had an apprehension 
that, on her return, this would form her response to 
Aunt Lavinia’s first embrace. In fact, however, the 
two ladies had met, in Washington Square, without 
tears; and when they found themselves alone to- 


WASHINGTON SQUARE. 


185 


gether a certain dryness fell upon the girl’s emo- 
tion. It came over her with a greater force that 
Mrs. Penniinan had enjoyed a whole year of her 
lover’s society, and it was not a pleasure to her to 
hear her aunt explain and interpret the young man, 
speaking of him as if her own knowledge of him 
were supreme. It was not that Catherine was jeal- 
ous; but her sense of Mrs. Penniman’s innocent 
.falsity, which had lain dormant, began to haunt her 
again, and she was glad that she was safely at home. 
With this, however, it was a blessing to be able to 
talk of Morris, to sound his name, to be with a per- 
son who was not unjust to him. 

‘‘You have been very kind to him,” said Cath- 
erine. “He has written me that, often. I shall 
never forget that, Aunt Lavinia.” 

“ I have done what I could ; it has been very lit- 
tle. To let him come and talk to me, and give him 
his Clip of tea — that was all. Your aunt Almond 
thought it was too much, and used to scold me ter- 
ribly ; but she promised me, at least, not to betray 
me.” 

“ To betray you ?” 

“Hot to tell your father. He used to sit in your 
father’s study,” said Mrs. Penniman, with a little 
laugh. 

Catherine was silent a moment. This idea was 
disagreeable to her, and she was reminded again, 
with pain, of her aunt’s secretive habits. Morris, 
the reader may be informed, had had the tact not to 
tell her that he sat in her father’s study. He had 
known her but for a few months, and her aunt had 
known her for fifteen years; and yet he would not 


186 


WASHINGTON SQUARE. 


liave made the mistake of thinking that Catherine 
would see the joke of the thing. ‘‘ I am sorry you 
made him go into father’s room,” she said, after 
awhile. 

“ 1 didn’t send him ; he went himself. He liked 
to look at the books, and at all those things in the 
fflass cases. He knows all about them ; he knows 
all about everything.” 

Catherine was silent again ; then, “ I wish he had 
found some employment,” she said. 

“ He has found some employment. It’s beauti- 
ful news, and he told me to tell you as soon as you 
arrived. He has gone into partnership with a com- 
mission merchant. It was all settled, quite sudden- 
ly, a week ago.” 

This seemed to Catherine indeed beautiful news ; 
it had a fine prosperous air. ‘‘Oh, I’m so glad!” 
she said ; and now, for a moment, she was disposed 
to throw herself on Aunt Lavinia’s neck. 

“It’s much better than being under some one; 
and he has never been used to that,” Mrs. Penniman 
went on. “ He is just as good as his partner — they 
are perfectly equal. You see how right he was to 
wait. I should like to know what your father can 
say now ! They have got an office in Duane Street, 
and little printed cards ; he brought me one to show 
me. I have got it in my room, and you shall see it 
to-morrow. That’s what he said to me the last time 
he was here — ‘You see how right I was to wait.’ 
He has got other people under him instead of being 
a subordinate. He could never be a subordinate; 
I have often told him I could never think of him in 
that way.” 





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WASHINGTON SQUARE. 


189 


Catherine assented to this proposition, and was 
very happy to know that Morris was his own mas- 
ter; but she was deprived of the satisfaction of 
thinking that she might communicate this news in 
triumph to her father. Her father would care 
equally little whether Morris were established in 
business or transported for life. Her trunks had 
been brought into her room, and further reference 
to her lover was for a short time suspended, while 
she opened them and displayed to her aunt some of 
the spoils of foreign travel. These were rich and 
abundant ; and Catherine had brought home a pres- 
ent to every one — to every one save Morris, to whom 
she had brought simply her undiverted heart. To 
Mrs. Penniman she had been lavishly generous, and 
Aunt Lavinia spent half an hour in unfolding and 
folding again, with little ejaculations of gratitude 
and taste. She marched about for some time in a 
splendid cashmere shawl, which Catherine had beg- 
ged her to accept, settling it on her shoulders, and 
twisting down her head to see how low the point 
descended behind. 

I shall regard it only as a loan,” she said. I 
will leave it to you again when I die ; or, rather,” 
she added, kissing her niece again, “I will leave it 
to your first-born little girl.” And draped in her 
shawl, she stood there smiling. 

“ You had better wait till she comes,” said Cath- 
erine. 

“ I don’t like the way you say that,” Mrs. Penni- 
man rejoined, in a moment. Catherine, are you 
changed ?” 

‘‘No; lam the same.” 


190 


WASHINGTON SQUARE. 


“ You have not swerved a line?” 

“ I am exactly the same,” Catherine repeated, 
wishing her aunt were a little less sympathetic. 

“Well, I am glad ;” and Mrs. Penniman surveyed 
her cashmere in the glass. Then, “ How is your fa- 
ther?” she asked, in a moment, with her eyes on 
her niece. “ Your letters were so meagre — I could 
never tell.” 

“ Father is very well.” 

“Ah, you know what I mean,” said Mrs. Penni- 
man, with a dignity to which the cashmere gave a 
richer effect. “ Is he still implacable ?” 

“ Oh yes !” 

“ Quite unchanged ?” 

“ He is, if possible, more firm.” 

Mrs. Penniman took off her great shawl, and slow- 
ly folded it up. “ That is very bad. You had no 
success with your little project.” 

“ What little project?” 

“Morris told me all about it. The idea of turn- 
ing the tables on him, in Europe; of watching him, 
when he was agreeably impressed by some cele- 
brated sight — he pretends to be so artistic, you 
know — and then just pleading with him and bring- 
ing him round.” 

“I never tried it. It was Morris’s idea; but if 
he had been with us in Europe, he would have seen 
that father was never impressed in that way. He 
is artistic — tremendously artistic ; but the more cel- 
ebrated places we visited, and the more he admired 
them, the less use it would have been to plead with 
him. They seemed only to make him more deter- 
mined — more terrible,” said poor Catherine. “I 


WASHINGTON SQUARE. 


191 


shall never bring him round, and I expect nothing 
now.” 

“Well, I must saj,” Mrs. Penniman answered, 
“ I never supposed you were going to give it up.” 

“ I have given it up. I don’t care now.” 

“ You have grown very brave,” said Mrs. Penni- 
man, with a short laugh. “I didn’t advise you to 
sacrifice your property.” 

“ Yes, I am braver than I was. You asked me if 
I had changed ; I have changed in that way. Oh,” 
the girl went on, “ I have changed very much. And 
it isn’t my property. If Jie doesn’t care for it, why 
should I?” 

Mrs. Penniman hesitated. “ Perhaps he does care 
for it.” 

“ He cares for it for my sake, because he doesn’t 
want to injure me. But he will know — he knows 
already — how little he need be afraid about that. 
Besides,” said Catherine, “ I have got plenty of mon- 
ey of my own. We shall be very well off ; and now 
hasn’t he got his business? I am delighted about 
that business.” She went on talking, showing a 
good deal of excitement as she proceeded. Her 
aunt had never seen her with just this manner, and 
Mrs. Penniman, observing her, set it down to for- 
eign travel, which had made her more positive, more 
mature. She thought also that Catherine had im-. 
proved in appearance ; she looked rather handsome. 
Mrs. Penniman wondered whether Morris T<ywnsend 
would be struck with that. While she was engaged 
in this speculation, Catherine broke out, with a cer- 
tain sharpness, “ Why are you so contradictory. Aunt 
Penniman ? You seem to think one thing at one 


192 


WASHINGTON SQUARE. 


time, and another at another. A year ago, before 
you went aw^ay, you wished me not to mind about 
displeasing father, and now you seem to recommend 
me to take another line. You change about so.” 

This attack was unexpected, for Mrs. Penniman 
was not used, in any discussion, to seeing the w^ar 
carried into her own country — possibly because the 
enemy generally had doubts of finding subsistence 
there. To her own consciousness, the fiowery fields 
of her reason had rarely been ravaged by a hostile 
force. It was perhaps on this account that in de- 
fending them she was majestic rather than agile. 

‘‘I don’t know what you accuse me of, save of 
being too deeply interested in your happiness. It 
is the first time I have been told I am capricious. 
That fault is not what I am usually reproached 
with.” 

“ You were angry last year that I wouldn’t marry 
immediately, and now you talk about my winning 
my father over. You told me it would serve him 
right if he should take me to Europe for nothing. 
Well, he has taken me for nothing, and you ought 
to be satisfied. Nothing is changed — nothing but 
my feeling about father. I don’t mind nearly so 
much now. I have been as good as I could, but 
he doesn’t care. Now I don’t care either. I don’t 
know whether I have grown bad ; perhaps I have. 
But I don’t care for that. I have come home to be 
married — that’s all I know. That ought to please 
you, unless you have taken up some new idea ; you 
are so strange. You may do as you please, but you 
must never speak to me again about pleading with 
father. I shall never plead with him for anything; 


WASHINGTON SQUARE. 


193 


that is all over. He has put me off. I am come 
home to be married.’’ 

This was a more authoritative speech than she had 
ever heard on her niece’s lips, and Mrs. Penniman 
was proportionately startled. She was, indeed, a lit- 
tle awe-struck, and the force of the girl’s emotion 
and resolution left her nothing to reply. She was 
easily frightened, and she always carried off her dis- 
comfiture by a concession — a concession which was 
often accompanied, as in the present case, by a little 
nervous laugh. 


XXVI. 

If she had disturbed her niece’s temper — she be- 
gan from this moment forward to talk a good deal 
about Catherine’s temper, an article which up to 
that time had never been mentioned in connection 
with our heroine — Catherine had opportunity on 
the morrow to recover her serenity. Mrs. Penni- 
man had given her a message from Morris Townsend 
to the effect that he would come and welcome her 
home on the day after her arrival. He came in the 
afternoon ; but, as may be imagined, he was not on 
this occasion made free of Doctor Sloper’s study. 
He had been coming and going, for the past year, 
so comfortably and irresponsibly, that he had a cer- 
tain sense of being wronged by finding himself re- 
minded that he must now limit his horizon to the 
front parlor, which was Catherine’s particular prov- 
ince. 

“ I am very glad you have come back,” he said ; 
“it makes me very happy to see you again.” And 

13 


194 


WASHINGTON SQUARE. 


lie looked at her, smiling, from head to foot, though 
it did not appear afterward that he agreed with Mrs. 
Penniman (who, woman-like, went more into details) 
in thinking her embellished. 

To Catherine he appeared resplendent; it was 
some time before she could believe again that this 
beautiful young man was her own exclusive property. 
They had a great deal of characteristic lovers’ talk 
— a soft exchange of inquiries and assurances. In 
these matters Morris had an excellent grace, which 
flung a picturesque interest even over the account 
of his debut in the commission business — a subject 
as to which his companion earnestly questioned him. 
From time to time he got up from the sofa where 
they sat together, and walked about the room ; after 
which he came back, smiling and passing his hand 
through his hair. He was unquiet, as was natural 
in a young man who has" just been reunited to a long- 
absent mistress, and Catherine made the reflection 
that she had never seen him so excited. It gave her 
pleasure, somehow, to note this fact. He askfed her 
questions about her travels, to some of which she 
was unable to reply, for she had forgotten the names 
of places and the order of her father’s journey.; But 
for the moment she was so happy, so lifted up by 
the belief that her troubles at last were over, that 
she forgot to be ashamed of her meagre answers. 
It seemed to her now that she could marry him 
without the remnant of a scruple, or a single tremor 
save those that belonged to joy. Without w^aiting 
for him to ask, she told him that her father had 
come back in exactly the same state of mind — that 
he had not yielded an inch. 


WASHINGTON SQUARE. 


195 


“ We must not expect it now,” she said, “ and we 
must do without it.” 

Morris sat looking and smiling. “ My poor, dear 
girl !” he exclaimed. 

‘‘ You mustn’t pity me,” said Catherine. “ I don’t 
mind it now ; I am used to it.” 

Morris continued to smile, and then he got up 
and walked about again. “ You had better let me 
try him.” 

Try to bring him over? You would only make 
him worse,” Catherine answered, resolutely. 

“You say that because I managed it so badly be- 
fore. But I should manage it differently now. I 
am much wiser; I have had a year to think of it. 
I have more tact.” 

“Is that what you have been thinking of for a 
year ?” 

“ Much of the time. You see, the idea sticks in 
my crop. I don’t like to be beaten.” 

“ How are you beaten if we marry ?” 

“ Of course I am not beaten on the main issue ; 
but I am, don’t you see ? on all the rest of it — on 
the question of my reputation, of my relations with 
your father, of my relations with my own children, 
if we should have any.” 

“We shall have enough for our children; we 
shall have enough for everything. Don’t you ex- 
pect to succeed in business ?” 

“ Brilliantly, and we shall certainly be very com- 
fortable. But it isn’t of the mere material comfort 
I speak ; it is of the moral comfort,” said Morris — 
“of the intellectual satisfaction.” 

“I have great moral comfort now,” Catherine 
declared, very simply. 


196 


WASHINGTON SQUARE. 


course you have. But with me it is differ- 
ent. I have staked my pride on proving to your 
father that he is wrong, and now that I am at the 
head of a flourishing business, I can deal with him 
as an equal. I have a capital plan — do let me go at 
him !” 

He stood before her with his bright face, his 
jaunty air, his hands in his pockets ; and she got up, 
with her eyes resting on his own. ‘‘ Please don’t, 
Morris ; please don’t,” she said ; and there was a 
certain mild, sad firmness in her tone which he 
heard for the first time. “We must ask no favors 
of him — we must ask nothing more. He won’t re- 
lent, and nothing good will come of it. I know it 
now — I have a very good reason.” 

“And pray what is your reason ?” 

She hesitated to bring it out, but at last it came. 
“ He is not very fond of me.” 

“ Oh, bother !” cried Morris, angrily. 

“ I wouldn’t say such a thing without being sure. 
I saw it, I felt it, in England, just before he came 
away. He talked to me one night — the last night 
— and then it came over me. You can tell when 
a person feels that way. I wouldn’t accuse him if 
he hadn’t made me feel that way. I don’t accuse 
him ; I just tell you that that’s how it is. He can’t 
help it ; we can’t govern our affections. Do I gov- 
ern mine? Mightn’t he say that to me? It’s be- 
cause he is so fond of my mother, whom we lost so 
long ago. She was beautiful, and very, very brill- 
iant ; he is always thinking of her. I am not at 
all like her ; Aunt Penniman has told me that. Of 
course it isn’t my fault ; but neither is it his fault. 


WASHINGTON SQUARE. 


197 


All I mean is, it’s true ; and it’s a stronger reason 
for his never being reconciled than simply his dis- 
like for you.” 

“ ‘ Simply V ” cried Morris, with a laugh. “I am 
much obliged for that.” 

‘‘I don’t mind about his disliking you now; I 
mind everything less. I feel differently; I feel 
separated from my father.” 

‘‘Upon my word,” said Morris, “you are a queer 
family.” 

“Don’t say that — don’t say anything unkind,” 
the girl entreated. “ You must be very kind to me 
now, because, Morris, because ” — and she hesitated 
a moment — “ because I have done a great deal for 
you.” 

“ Oh, I know that, my dear.” 

She had spoken up to this moment without ve- 
hemence or outward sign of emotion, gently, reason- 
ingly, only trying to explain. But her emotion had 
been ineffectually smothered, and it betrayed itself 
at last in the trembling of her voice. “ It is a great 
thing to be separated like that from your father, 
when you have worshipped him before. It has 
made me very unhappy ; or it would have made me 
BO if I didn’t love you. ^'Y^ou can tell when a per- 
son speaks to you as if — as if — ” 

“ As if what ?” 

“ As if they despised you r said Catherine, pas- 
sionately. “He spoke that way the night before 
we sailed. It wasn’t much, but it was enough, and 
I thought of it on the voyage all the time. Then I 
made up my mind. I will never ask him for any- 
thing again, or expect anything from him. It would 


198 


WASHINGTON SQUARE. 


not be natural now. We must be very happy to- 
gether, and we must not seem to depend upon his 
forgiveness. And, Morris, Morris, you must never 
despise me !” 

This was an easy promise to make, and Morris 
made it with fine effect. But for the moment he 
undertook nothing more onerous. 


CHAPTEK XXYII. 

The Doctor, of course, on his return, had a good 
deal of talk with his sisters. He was at no great 
pains to narrate his travels or to communicate his 
impressions of distant lands to Mrs. Penhiman, upon 
whom he contented himself with bestowing a me- 
mento of his enviable experience in the shape of a 
velvet gown. But he conversed with her at some 
length about matters nearer home, and lost no time 
in assuring her that he was still an indexible father. 

‘‘ I have no doubt you have seen a great deal of 
Mr. Townsend, and done your best to console him 
for Catherine’s absence,” he said. “ I don’t ask you, 
and you needn’t deny it. I wouldn’t put the ques- 
tion to you for the world, and expose you to the in- 
convenience of having to — a — excogitate an answer. 
No one has betrayed you, and there has been no 
spy upon your proceedings. Elizabeth has told no 
tales, and has never mentioned you except to praise 
your good looks and good spirits. The thing is 
simply an inference of my own — an induction, as 
the philosophers say. It seems to me likely that 
you would have offered an asylum to an interesting 


WASHINGTON SQUARE. 


199 


sufferer. Mr. Townsend has been a good deal in 
the house ; there is something in the house that tells 
me so. We doctors, you know, end by acquiring 
fine perceptions, and it is impressed upon my sen- 
sorium that he has sat in these chairs, in a very easy 
attitude, and warmed himself at that fire. I don’t 
grudge him the comfort of it ; it is the only one he 
will ever enjoy at my expense. It seems likely, in- 
deed, that I shall be able to economize at his own. 
I don’t know what you may have said to him, or 
what you may say hereafter ; but I should like you 
to know that if you have encouraged him to believe 
that he will gain anything by hanging on, or that 
I have budged a hair-breadth from the position I 
took up a year ago, you have played him a trick for 
which he may exact reparation. I’m not sure that 
he may not bring a suit against you. Of course you 
have done it conscientiously ; you have made your- 
self believe that I can be tired out. This is the 
most baseless hallucination that ever visited the 
brain of a genial optimist. I am not in the least 
tired ; I am as fresh as when I started ; I am good 
for fifty years yet. Catherine appears not to have 
budged an inch either ; she is equally fresh ; so we 
are about where we were before. This, however, 
you know as well as I. What I wish is simply to 
give you notice of my own state of mind, Take it 
to heart, dear Lavinia. Beware of the just resent- 
ment of a deluded fortune-hunter !” 

I can’t say I expected it,” said Mrs. Penniman. 
“And I had a sort of foolish hope that you would 
come home without that odious ironical tone with 
which you treat the most ^red "subjects.” 


200 


WASHINGTON SQUARE. 


... . 

“ Don’t undervalue irony ; it is of^n of great use. 
It is not, however, always necessary, and I will show 
you how gracefully I can lay it aside. I should like 
to know whether you think Morris Townsend will 
hang on ?” 

“ I will answer you with your own weapons,” 
said Mrs. Penniman. ^‘You had better wait and 
see.” 

‘‘Do you call such a speech as that one of my 
own weapons ? I never said anything so rough.” 

“ He will hang on long enough to make you very 
uncomfortable, then.” 

“ My dear Lavinia,” exclaimed the Doctor, “ do 
you call that irony? I call it pugilism.” 

Mrs. Penniman, however, in spite of her pugilism, 
was a good deal frightened, and she took counsel 
of her fears. Her brother meanwhile took counsel,- 
with many reservations, of Mrs. Almond, to whom 
he was no less generous than to Lavinia, and a good 
deal more communicative. 

“ I suppose she has had him there all the while,” 
he said. “ I must look into the state of my wine. 
You needn’t mind telling me now ; I have already 
said all I mean to say to her on the subject.” 

“ I believe he was in the house a good deal,” Mrs. 
Almond answered. “ But you must admit that your 
leaving Lavinia quite alone was a great change for 
her, and that it was natural she should want some 
society.” 

“ I do admit that, and that is why I shall make 
no row about the wine ; I shall set it down as com- 
pensation to Lavinia. She is capable of telling me 
that she drank it all herself. Think of the incon- 


WASHINGTON SQUARE. 


201 


ceivable bad taste, in the circumstances, of that fel- 
low making free with the house — or coming there 
at all ! If that doesn’t describe him, he is indescrib- 
able.” 

“His plan is to get what he can. Lavinia will 
have supported him for a year,” said Mrs. Almond. 
“ It’s so much gained.” 

“She will have to support him for the rest of his 
life, then,” cried the Doctor; “but without wine, 
as they say at the tables WhoteP 

“ Catherine tells-me he has set up a business, and 
is making a great deal of money.” 

The Doctor stared. “ She has not told me that 
— and Lavinia didn’t deign. Ah !” he cried, “ Cath- 
erine has given me up. Hot that it matters, for all 
that the business amounts to.” 

“ She has not given up Mr. Townsend,” said Mrs. 
Almond ; “ I saw that in the first half-minute. She 
has come home exactly the same.” 

“ Exactly the same ; not a grain more intelligent. 
She didn’t notice a stick or a stone all the while we 
were away — not a picture nor a view, not a statue 
nor a cathedral.” 

“How could she notice? She had other things 
to think of ; they are never for an instant out of her 
mind. She touches me very much.” 

“ She would touch me if she didn’t irritate me. 
That’s the effect she has upon me now. I have tried 
everything upon her; I really have been quite 
merciless-. But it is of no use whatever; she is 
absolutely glued. I have passed, in consequence, 
into the exasperated stage. At first I had a good 
deal of a certain genial curiosity about it ; I wanted 


202 


WASHINGTON SQUARE. 


to see if she really would stick. But, good Lord, 
one’s curiosity is satisfied ! I see she is capable of 
it, and now she caii let go.” 

“ She will never let go,” said Mrs. Almond. 

“ Take care, or you will exasperate me too. If 
she doesn’t let go, she will be shaken off — sent 
tumbling into the dust. That’s a nice position for 
my daughter. She can’t see that if you are going 
to be pushed, you had better jump. And then she 
will complain of her bruises.” 

‘‘ She will never complain,” said Mrs. Almond. 

“ That I shall object to even more. But the deuce 
will be that I can’t prevent anything.” 

“ If she is to have a fall,” said Mrs. Almond, with 
a gentle laugh, ‘‘ we must spread as many carpets as 
we can.” And she carried out this idea by showing 
a great deal of motherly kindness to the girl. 

Mrs. Penniman immediately wrote to Morris 
Townsend. The intimacy between these two was 
by this time consummate, but I must content myself 
with noting but a few of its features. Mrs. Penni- 
man’s own share in it was a singular sentiment, 
which might have been misinterpreted, but which 
in itself was not discreditable to the poor lady. It 
was a romantic interest in this attractive and unfort- 
unate young man, and yet it was not such an inter- 
est as Catherine might have been jealous of. Mrs. 
Penniman had not a particle of jealousy of her niece. 
For herself, she felt as if she were Morris’s mother 
or sister — a mother or sister of an emotional tem- 
perament — and she had an absorbing desire to make 
him comfortable and happy. She had striven to do 
so during the year that her brother left her an open 
field, and her efforts had been attended with the 


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success that has been pointed out. She had never 
had a child of her own, and Catherine, whom she 
had done her best to invest with the importance that 
would naturally belong to a youthful Penniman, had 
only partly rewarded her zeal. Catherine, as an ob- 
ject of affection and solicitude, had never had that 
picturesque charm which (as it seemed to her) would 
have been a natural attribute of her own progeny. 
Even the maternal passion in Mrs. Penniman would 
have been romantic and factitious, and Catherine 
was not constituted to inspire a romantic passion. 
Mrs. Penniman was as fond of her as ever, but she 
had grown to feel that with Catherine she lacked 
opportunity. Sentimentally speaking, therefore, she 
had (though she had not disinherited her niece) 
adopted Morris Townsend, who gave her opportuni- 
ty in abundance. She would have been very happy 
to have a handsome and tyrannical son, and would 
have taken an extreme interest in his love affairs. 
This was the light in which she had come to regard 
Morris, who had conciliated her at first, and made 
his impression by his delicate and calculated defer- 
ence — a sort of exhibition to which Mrs. Penniman 
was particularly sensitive. He had largely abated 
his deference afterward, for he economized his re- 
sources, but the impression was made, and the young 
man’s very brutality came to have a sort of filial 
value. If Mrs. Penniman had had a son, she would 
probably have been afraid of him, and at this stage 
of our narrative she was certainly afraid of Morris 
Townsend. This was one of the results of his 
domestication in Washington Square. He took his 
ease with her — as, for that matter, he would certain- 
ly have done with his own mother. 


204 


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CHAPTER XXYIII. 

The letter was a word of warning; it informed 
him that the Doctor had come home more imprac- 
ticable than ever. She might have reflected that 
Catherine would supply him with all the informa- 
tion he needed on this point ; but we know that 
Mrs. Penniman’s reflections were rarely just; and, 
moreover, she felt that it was not for her to depend 
on what Catherine might do. She was to do her 
duty, quite irrespective of Catherine. I have said 
that her young friend took his ease with her, and it 
is an illustration of the fact that he made no answer 
to her letter. lie took note of it amply; but he 
lighted his cigar with it, and he waited, in tranquil 
confidence that he should receive another. “His 
state of mind really freezes my blood,” Mrs. Penni- 
man had written, alluding to her brother ; and it 
would have seemed that upon this statement she 
could hardly improve. Nevertheless, she wrote 
again, expressing herself with the aid of a different 
figure. “ His hatred of you burns 'with a lurid flame 
— the flame that never dies,” she wrote. “But it 
doesn’t light up the darkness of your future. If 
my affection could do so, all the years of your life 
would be an eternal sunshine. I can extract noth- 
ing from C. ; she is so terribly secretive, like her 
father. She seems to expect to be married very 
soon, and has evidently made preparations in Eu- 


WASHINGTON SQUARE. 


205 


rope— quantities of clothing, ten pairs of shoes, etc. 
My dear friend, you cannot set up in married life 
simply with a few pairs of shoes, can you? Tell 
me what you think of this. I am intensely anxious 
to see yon, I have so much to say. I miss you 
dreadfully ; the house seems so empty without you. 
What is the news down town ? Is the business ex- 
tending? — that dear little business: I think it’s so 
brave of you! Couldn’t I come to your office? — 
just for three minutes ? I might pass for a customer 
— is that what you call them ? I might come in to 
buy something — some shares or some railroad things. 
Tell me what you think of this plan. I would carry 
a little reticule, like a woman of the people.” 

In spite of the suggestion about the reticule, Mor- 
ris appeared to think poorly of the plan, for he gave 
Mrs. Penniman no encouragement whatever to visit 
his office, which he had already represented to her 
as a place peculiarly and unnaturally difficult to find. 
But as she persisted in desiring an interview — up to 
the last, after months of intimate colloquy, she called 
these meetings ‘interviews” — he agreed that they 
should take a walk together, and was even kind 
enough to leave his office for this purpose during 
the hours at which business might have been sup- 
posed to be liveliest. It was no surprise to him, 
when they met at a street corner, in a region of 
empty lots and undeveloped pavements (Mrs. Penni- 
man being attired as much as possible like a “ wom- 
an of the people ”), to find that, in spite of her ur- 
gency, wliat she chiefly had to convey to him was 
the assurance of her sympathy. Of such assurances, 
liowever, he had already a voluminous collection, and 


206 


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it would not have been worth his while to forsake a 
fruitful avocation merely to hear Mrs. Penniman say, 
for the thousandth time, that she had made his cause 
her own. Morris had something of his own to say. 
It was not an easy thing to bring out, and while he 
turned it over, the difficulty made him acrimonious. 

“ Oh yes, I know perfectly that he combines the 
properties of a lump of ice and a red-hot coal,” he 
observed. Catherine has made it thoroughly clear, 
and you have told me so till I am sick of it. You 
needn’t tell me again ; I am perfectly satisfied. He 
will never give us a penny ; I regard that as mathe- 
matically proved.” 

Mrs. Penniman at this point had an inspiration. 

“Couldn’t you .bring a lawsuit against him?” 
She wondered that this simple expedient had never 
occurred to her before. 

“ I will bring a lawsuit against said Morris, 
“if you ask me any more such aggravating ques- 
tions. A man should know when he is beaten,” he 
added, in a moment. “ I must give her up !” 

Mrs. Penniman received this declaration in silence, 
though it made her heart beat a little. It found her 
by no means unprepared, for she had accustomed 
herself to the thought that, if Morris should decided- 
ly not be able to get her brother’s money, it w'ould 
not do for him to marry Catherine without it. “ It 
would not do,” was a vague way of putting the 
thing ; but Mrs. Penniman’s natural affection com- 
pleted the idea, which, though it had not as yet been 
so crudely expressed between them as in the form 
that Morris had just given it, had nevertheless been 
implied so often, in certain easy intervals of talk, as 


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207 


he sat stretching his legs in the Doctor’s well-stuffed 
arm-chairs, that she had grown first to regard it with 
an emotion which she flattered herself was philo- 
sophic, and then to have a secret tenderness for it. 
The fact that she kept her tenderness secret proves, 
of course, that she was ashamed of it ; but she man- 
aged to blink her shame by reminding herself that 
she was, after all, the official protector of her niece’s 
marriage. Her logic would scarcely liave passed 
muster with the Doctor. In the first place, Morris 
must get the money, and she would help him to it. 
In the second, it was plain it would never come to 
him, and it would be a grievous pity he should mar- 
ry without it — a young man who might so easily 
find something better. After her brother had de- 
livered himself, on his return from Europe, of that 
incisive little address that has been quoted, Morris’s 
cause seemed so hopeless that Mrs. Pennimaii fixed 
her attention exclusively upon the latter branch of 
her argument. If Morris had been her son, she 
would certainly have sacrificed Catherine to a supe- 
rior conception of his future ; and to be ready to do 
so, as the case stood, was therefore even a finer de- 
gree of devotion. Nevertheless, it checked her 
breath a little to have the sacrificial knife, as it were, 
suddenly thrust into her hand. 

Morris walked along a moment, and then he re- 
peated, harshly, 

‘‘ I must give her up !” 

“I think I understand you,” said Mrs. Penniman, 
gently. 

“I certainly say it distinctly enough — brutally 
and vulgarly enough.” 


208 


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He was ashamed of himself, and his shame was 
uncomfortable ; and as he was extremely intolerant 
of discomfort, he felt vicious and cruel. He wanted 
to abuse somebody, and he began, cautiously — for 
he was always cautious — with himself. 

^‘Couldn’t you take her down a little?” he asked. 

‘‘ Take her down ?” 

“ Prepare her — try and ease me off.” 

Mrs. Penniman stopped, looking at him very 
solemnly. 

“ My poor Morris, do you know how much she 
loves you ?” 

Ho, I don’t. I don’t want to know. I have al- 
w^ays tried to keep from knowing. It would be too 
painful.” 

“ She will suffer much,” said Mrs. Penniman. 

‘^You must console her. If you are as good a 
friend to me as you pretend to be, you will manage 
it.” 

Mrs. Penniman shook her head sadly. 

“You talk of my ‘pretending’ to like you; but 
I can’t pretend to hate you. I can only tell her I 
think very highly of you; and how will that console 
her for losing you ?” 

“ The Doctor will help you. He will be delight- 
ed at the thing being broken off; and as he is a 
knowing fellow, he will invent something to com- 
fort her.” 

“He will invent a new torture,” cried Mrs. Pen- 
niman. “Heaven deliver her from her father’s 
comfort ! It will consist of his crowing over her, 
and saying, ‘ I always told you so !’ ” 

Morris colored a most uncomfortable red. 


WASHINGTON SQUARE. 


209 


“ If you don’t console her any better than you 
console me, you certainly won’t be of much use. 
It’s a damned disagreeable necessity; I feel it ex- 
tremely, and you ought to make it easy for me.” 

“ I will be your friend for life,” Mrs. Penniman 
declared. 

“Be my friend nowP^ and Morris walked on. 

She went with him ; she was almost trembling. 

“ Should you like me to tell her ?” she asked. 

“ You mustn’t tell her, but you can — you can — ” 
And he hesitated, trying to think what Mrs. Penni- 
man could do. “You can explain to her why it is. 
It’s because I can’t bring myself to step in between 
her and her father — to give him the pretext he 
grasps at so eagerly (it’s a hideous sight !) for de- 
priving her of her rights.” 

Mrs. Penniman felt with remarkable promptitude 
the charm of this formula. 

“ That’s so like you,” she said ; “ it’s so finely 
felt.” 

Morris gave his stick an angry swing. 

“ Oh damnation !” he exclaimed, perversely. 

Mrs. Penniman, however, was not discouraged. 

“It may turn out better than you think. Cath- 
erine is, after all, so very peculiar.” And she 
thought she might take it upon herself to assure 
him that, whatever happened, the girl would be very 
quiet — she wouldn’t make a noise. They extend- 
ed their walk, and while they proceeded Mrs. Penni- 
man took upon herself other things besides, and 
ended by having assumed a considerable burden ; 
Morris being ready enough, as may be imagined, to 
put everything off upon her. But he was not for 
14 


210 


WASHINGTON SQUARE. 


a single instant the dupe of her blundering alacrity ; 
he knew that of what she promised she was com- 
petent to perform but an insignificant fraction, and 
the more she professed her willingness to serve him, 
the greater fool he thought her. 

“ What will you do if you don’t marry her ?” she 
ventured to inquire in the course of this conversation. 

‘‘Something brilliant,” said Morris. “Shouldn’t 
you like me to do something brilliant ?” 

The idea gave Mrs. Penniman exceeding pleasure. 

“ I shall feel sadly taken in if you don’t.” 

“ I shall have to, to make up for this. This isn’t 
at all brilliant, you know.” 

Mrs. Penniman mused a little, as if there might 
be some way of making out that it was ; but she 
had to give up the attempt, and, to carry off the 
awkwardness of failure, she risked a new inquiry. 

“ Do you mean — do you mean another marriage ?” 

Morris greeted this question with a reflection 
which was hardly the less impudent from being 
inaudible. “ Surely women are more crude than 
men !” And then he answered, audibly, 

‘‘Never in the world !” 

Mrs. Penniman felt disappointed and snubbed, 
and she relieved herself in a little vaguely sarcastic 
cry. He was certainly perverse. 

“ I give her up, not for another woman, but for a 
wider career,” Morris announced. 

This was very grand ; but still Mrs. Penniman, 
who felt that she had exposed herself, was faintly 
rancorous. 

“Do you mean never to come to see her again ?” 
she asked, with some sharpness. 


WASHINGTON SQUARE. 


211 


“ Oil no, I shall come again ; but what is the use 
of dragging it out? I have been four times since 
she came back, and it’s terribly awkward work. I 
can’t keep it up indefinitely ; she oughtn’t to expect 
that, you know. A woman should never keep a 
man dangling,” he added, finely. 

“ Ah, but you must have your last parting !” urged 
his companion, in whose imagination the idea of last 
partings occupied a place inferior in dignity only to 
that of first meetings. 


XXIX. 

He came again, without managing the last part- 
ing ; and again and again, without finding that Mrs. 
Penniman had as yet done much to pave the path 
of retreat with flowers. It was devilish awkward, 
as he said, and he felt a lively animosity for Cath- 
erine’s aunt, who, as he had now quite formed the 
habit of saying to himself, had dragged him into 
the mess, and was bound in common charity to get 
him out of it. Mrs. Penniman, to tell the truth, had, 
in the seclusion of her own apartment — and, I may 
add, amid the suggestiveness of Catherine’s, which 
wore in those days the appearance of that of a young 
lady laying out her trousseau — Mrs. Penniman had 
measured her responsibilities, and taken fright at 
their magnitude. The task of preparing Catherine 
and easing off Morris presented difficulties which 
increased in the execution, and even led the impul- 
sive Lavinia to ask herself whether the modification 


212 


WASHINGTON SQUARE. 


of the young man’s original project had been con- 
ceived in a happy spirit. A brilliant future, a wider 
career, a conscience exempt from the reproach of 
interference between a young lady and her natural 
rights — these excellent things might be too trou- 
blesomely purchased. From Catherine herself Mrs. 
Penniman received no assistance whatever ; the poor 
girl was apparently without suspicion of her danger. 
She looked at her lover with eyes of undiminished 
trust, and though she had less confidence in her aunt 
than in a young man with whom she had exchanged 
so many tender vows, she gave her no handle for 
explaining or confessing. Mrs: Penniman, faltering 
and wavering, declared Catherine was very stupid, 
put off the great scene, as she would have called it, 
from day to day, and wandered about, very uncom- 
fortably, with her unexploded bomb in her hands. 
Morris’s own scenes were very small ones just now ; 
but even these were beyond his strength. He made 
his visits as brief as possible, and, while he sat with 
his mistress, found terribly little to talk about. She 
was waiting for him, in vulgar parlance, to name 
the day; and so long as he was unprepared to be 
explicit on this point, it seemed a mockery to pre- 
tend to talk about matters more abstract. She had 
no airs and no arts ; she never attempted to disguise 
her expectancy. She was waiting on his good 
pleasure, and would wait modestly and patiently ; 
his hanging back at this supreme time might appear 
strange, but of course he must have a good reason 
for it. Catherine would have made a wife of the 
gentle, old-fashioned pattern — regarding reasons as 
favors and windfalls, but no more expecting one 


WASHINGTON SQUARE. 


213 


every day than she would have expected a bouquet 
of camellias. During the period of her engage- 
ment, however, a young lady even of the most slen- 
der pretensions counts upon more bouquets than at 
other times; and there was a want of perfume in 
the air at this moment which at last excited the 
girl’s alarm. 

‘‘Are you sick?” she asked of Morris. “You 
seem so restless, and you look pale.” 

“ I am not at all well,” said Morris ; and it occur- 
red to him that, if he could only make her pity him 
enough, he might get off. 

“ I am afraid you are overworked ; you oughtn’t 
to work so much.” 

“ I must do that.” And then he added, with a 
sort of calculated brutality, “I don’t want to owe 
you everything.” 

“ Ah, how can you say that ?” 

“ I am too proud,” said Morris. 

“Yes — you are too proud.” 

“Well, you must take me as I am,” he went on; 
“ you can never change me.” 

“ I don’t want to change you,” she said, gently ; 
“ I will take you as you are.” And she stood look- 
ing at him. 

“You know people talk tremendously about a 
man’s marrying a rich girl,” Morris remarked. “ It’s 
excessively disagreeable.” 

“ But I am not rich,” said Catherine. 

“ You are rich enough to make me talked about.” 

“ Of course you are talked about. It’s an honor.” 

“ It’s an honor I could easily dispense with.” 

She was on the point of asking him whether it 


214 


WASHINGTON SQUARE. 


was not a compensation for this annoyance that the 
poor girl who had the misfortune to bring it upon 
him loved him so dearly and believed in him so 
truly ; but she hesitated, thinking that this would 
perhaps seem an exacting speech, and while she 
hesitated, he suddenly left her. 

The next time he came, however, she brought it 
out, and she told him again that he was too proud. 
He repeated that he couldn’t change, and this time 
she felt the impulse to say that with a little effort 
he might change. 

Sometimes he thought that if he could only make 
a quarrel with her it might help him ; but the ques- 
tion was how to quarrel with a young woman who 
had such treasures of concession. “ I suppose you 
think the effort is all on your side,” he broke out. 
‘‘ Don’t you believe that I have my own effort to 
make ?” 

“ It’s all yours now,” she said ; “ my effort is fin- 
ished and done with.” 

“ Well, mine is not.” 

“We must bear things together,” said Catherine. 
“ That’s what we ought to do.” 

Morris attempted a natural smile. “ There are 
some things which we can’t very well bear together 
— for instance, separation.” 

“ Why do you speak of separation ?” 

“Ah ! you don’t like it ; I knew you wouldn’t.” 

“ Where are you going, Morris ?” she suddenly 
asked. 

He fixed his eye on her a moment, and for a part 
of that moment she was afraid of it. “Will you 
promise not to make a scene ?” 


WASHINGTON SQUARE. 


215 


scene! — do I make scenes?” 

‘‘All women do!” said Morris, with the tone of 
large experience. 

“ I don’t. Where are you going ?” 

“If I should say I was going away on business, 
should you think it very strange ?” 

She wondered a moment, gazing at him. “Yes 
— no. Not if you will take me with you.” 

“ Take you with me — on business ?” 

“ What is your business ? Your business is to be 
with me.” 

“ I don’t earn my living with you,” said Morris. 
“ Or, rather,” he cried, with a sudden inspiration, 
“that’s just what I do — or what the world says I 
do !” 

This ought perhaps to have been a great stroke, 
but it miscarried. “ Where are you going ?” Cath- 
erine simply repeated. 

“ To New Orleans — about buying some cot- 
ton.” 

“I am perfectly willing to go to New Orleans,” 
Catherine said. 

“ Do you suppose I would take you to a nest of 
yellow -fever?” cried Morris. “Do you suppose I 
would expose you at such a time as this?” 

“If there is yellow -fever, why should you go? 
Morris, you must not go.” 

“ It is to make six thousand dollars,” said Morris. 
“ Do you grudge me that satisfaction ?” 

“We have no need of six thousand dollars. You 
think too much about money.” 

“You can afford to say that. This is a great 
chance; w'e heard of it last night.” And he ex- 


216 


WASHINGTON SQUARE. 


plained to her in what the chance consisted ; and 
told her a long story, going over more than once 
several of the details, about the remarkable stroke 
of business which he and his partner had planned 
between them. 

But Catherine’s imagination, for reasons best 
known to herself, absolutely refused to be fired. 
“ If you can go to New Orleans, I can go,” she said. 
‘‘Why shouldn’t you catch yellow-fever quite as 
easily as I ? I am every bit as strong as you, and 
not in the least afraid of any fever. When we were 
in Europe we were in very unhealthy places ; my 
father used to make me take some pills. I never 
caught anything, and I never was nervous. What 
will be the use of six thousand dollars if you die of 
a fever? When persons are going to be married 
they oughtn’t to think so much about business. 
You shouldn’t think about cotton ; you should think 
about me. You can go to New Orleans some other 
time — there will always be plenty of cotton. It isn’t 
the moment to choose: we have waited too long 
already.” She spoke more forcibly and volubly 
than he had ever heard her, and she held his arm in 
her two hands. 

“You said you wouldn’t make a scene,” cried 
Morris. “ I call this a scene.” 

“ It’s you that are making it. I have never asked 
you anything before. We have waited too long 
already.” And it was a comfort to her to think 
that she had hitherto asked so little; it seemed to 
make her right to insist the greater now. 

Morris bethought himself a little. “ Very well, 
then ; we won’t talk about it any more. I will 


WASHINGTON SQUARE. 


217 


transact my business by letter.” And he began to 
smooth his hat, as if to take leave. 

“You won’t go?” and she stood looking up at 
him. 

He could not give up his idea of provoking a 
quarrel ; it was so much the simplest way. He bent 
his eyes on her upturned face with the darkest frown 
he could achieve. “ You are not discreet ; you 
mustn’t bully me.” 

But, as usual, she conceded everything. “ Ho, I 
am not discreet ; I know I am too pressing. But 
isn’t it natural ? It is only for a moment.” 

“ In a moment you may do a great deal of harm. 
Try and be calmer the next time I come.” 

“ When will you come ?” 

“ Do you want to make conditions ?” Morris ask- 
ed. “ I will come next Saturday.” 

“ Come to-morrow,” Catherine begged ; “ I want 
you to come to-morrow. I will be very quiet,” she 
added ; and her agitation had by this time become 
so great that the assurance was not unbecoming. A 
sudden fear had come over her; it was like the solid 
conjunction of a dozen disembodied doubts, and her 
imagination, at a single bound, had traversed an 
enormous distance. All her being, for the mo- 
ment, was centred in the wish to keep him in the 
room. 

Morris bent his head and kissed her forehead. 
“When you are quiet, you are perfection,” he said; 
“ but when you are violent, you are not in charac- 
ter.” 

It was Catherine’s wish that there should be no 
violence about her save the beating of her heart. 


218 


WASHINGTON SQUARE. 


which she could not help; and she went on, as 
gently as possible, ‘^Will you promise to come to- 
morrow 

‘‘I said Saturday!” Morris ans\^red, smiling. 
He tried a frown at one moment, a smile at an- 
other ; he was at his wit’s end. 

“Yes, Saturday too,” she answered, trying to 
smile. “But to-morrow first.” He was going to 
the door, and she went with him quickly. She 
leaned her shoulder against it; it seemed to her 
that she would do anything to keep him. 

“ If I am prevented from coming to-morrow, you 
will say I have deceived you,” he said. 

“How can you be prevented? You can come if 
you will.” 

“ I am a busy man — I am not a dangler 1” cried 
Morris, sternly. 

His voice was so hard and unnatural that, with a 
helpless look at him, she turned away ; and then he 
quickly laid his hand on the door-knob. He felt as 
if he were absolutely running away from her. But 
in an instant she was close to him again, and mur- 
muring in a tone none the less penetrating for being 
low, “ Morris, you are going to leave me.” 

“ Yes, for a little while.” 

“ For how long?” 

“ Till you are reasonable again.” 

“ I shall never be reasonable, in that way.” And 
she tried to keep him longer ; it was almost a strug- 
gle. “ Think of what I have done 1” she broke out. 
“ Morris, I have given up everything.” 

“ You shall have everything back.” 

“You wouldn’t say that if you didn’t mean some- 


WASHINGTON SQUARE. 


219 


thing. What is it ? — what has happened ? — what 
have I done? — what has changed you ?” 

“ I will write to you — that is better,” Morris stam- 
mered. 

“Ah, you won’f come back!” she cried, bursting 
into tears. 

“ Dear Catherine,” he said, “ don’t believe that. 
I promise you that you shall see me again.” And 
he managed to get away, and to close the door be- 
hind him. 


220 


WASHINGTON SQUARE. 



It was almost the last outbreak of passion of her 
life; at least, she never indulged in another that the 
world knew anything about. But this one was long 
and terrible ; she flung herself on the sofa and gave 
herself up to her grief. She hardly knew what had 
happened ; ostensibly she had only had a difference 
with her lover, as other girls had had before, and 
the thing was not only not a rupture, but she was 
under no obligation to regard it even as a menace. 
Nevertheless, she felt a wound, even if he had not 
dealt it ; it seemed to her that a mask had suddenly 
fallen from his face. He had wished to get aw^ay 
from her; he had been angry and cruel, and said 
strange things, with strange looks. She was smoth- 
ered and stunned ; she buried her head in the cusli- 


WASHINGTON SQUARE. 


221 


ions, sobbing and talking to herself. But at last 
she raised herself, with the fear that either her fa- 
ther or Mrs. Penniman would come in ; and then she 
sat there, staring before her, while the room grew 
darker. She said to herself that perhaps he would 
come back to tell her he had not meant what he 
said ; and she listened for his ring at the door, try- 
ing to believe that this was probable. A long time 
passed, but Morris remained absent ; the shadows 
gathered ; the evening settled down on the meagre 
elegance of the light, clear- colored room; the fire 
went out. When it had grown dark, Catherine 
went to the window and looked out ; she stood there 
for half an hour, on the mere chance that he would 
come up the steps. At last she turned away, for 
she saw her father come in. He had seen her at 
the window looking out, and he stopped a moment 
at the bottom of the white steps, and gravely, with 
an air of exaggerated courtesy, lifted his hat to her. 
The gesture was so incongruous to the conditiou- 
she was in, this stately tribute of respect to a poor 
girl despised and forsaken was so out of place, that 
the thing gave her a kind of horror, and she hurried 
away to her room. It seemed to her that she had 
given Morris up. 

She had to show herself half an hour later, and 
slie was sustained at table by the immensity of her 
desire that her fathei should not perceive that any- 
thing had happened. This was a great help to her 
afterward, and it served her (though never as much 
as she supposed) from the first. On this occasion 
Doctor Sloper was rather talkative. He told a great 
many stories about a wonderful poodle that he had 


222 


WASHINGTON SQUARE. 


seen at the house of an old lady whom he visited 
professionally. Catherine not only tried to appear 
to listen to the anecdotes of the poodle, but she en- 
deavored to interest herself in them, so as not to 
think of her scene with Morris. That perhaps was 
an hallucination; he was mistaken, she was jealous; 
people didn’t change like that from one day to an- 
other. Then she knew that she had had doubts be- 
fore — strange suspicions, that were at once vague 
and acute — and that he had been different ever since 
her return from Europe : whereupon she tried again 
to listen to her father, who told a story so remarka- 
bly well. Afterward she went straight to her own 
room ; it was beyond her strength to undertake to 
spend the evening with her aunt. All the evening, 
alone, she questioned herself. Her trouble was ter- 
rible; but was it a thing of her imagination, engen- 
dered by an extravagant sensibility, or did it repre- 
sent a clear-cut reality, and had the worst that was 
possible actually come to pass? Mrs. Penniman, 
with a degree of tact that was as unusual as it was 
commendable, took the line of leaving her alone. 
The truth is, that her suspicions having been aroused, 
she indulged a desire, natural to a timid person, that 
the explosion should be localized. So long as the 
air still vibrated* she kept out of the way. 

She passed and repassed Catherine’s door several 
times in the course of the evening, as if she expected 
to hear a plaintive moan behind it. But the room 
remained perfectly still; and accordingly, the last 
thing before retiring to her own couch, she applied 
for admittance. Catherine was sitting up, and had 
a book that she pretended to be reading. She had 


WASHINGTON SQUARE. 


223 


no wish to go to bed, for she had no expectation of 
sleeping. After Mrs. Penniman had left her she 
sat up half the night, and she offered her visitor no 
inducement to remain. Her aunt came stealing in 
very gently, and approached her with great solem- 
nity. 

I am afraid you are in trouble, my dear. Can I 
do anything to help you 

‘‘ I am not in any trouble whatever, and do not 
need any help,” said Catherine, fibbing roundly, and 
proving thereby that not only our faults, but our 
most involuntary misfortunes, tend to corrupt our 
morals. 

‘‘ Has nothing happened to you 

‘‘Hothing whatever.” 

“Are you very sure, dear?” 

“ Perfectly sure.” 

“And can I really do nothing for you ?” 

“Nothing, aunt, but kindly leave me alone,” said 
Catherine. 

Mrs. Penniman, though she had been afraid of too 
warm a welcome before, was now disappointed at so 
cold a one ; and in relating afterward, as she did to 
many persons, and with considerable variations of 
detail, the history of the termination of her niece’s 
engagement, she was usually careful to mention that 
the young lady, on a certain occasion, had “hustled” 
her out of the room. It was characteristic of Mrs. 
Penniman that she related this fact, not in the least 
out of malignity to Catherine, whom she very suffi- 
ciently pitied, but simply from a natural disposition 
to embellish any subject that she touched. 

Catherine, as I have said, sat up half the night, as 


224 


WASHINGTON SQUARE. 


ii she still expected to hear Morris Townsend ring 
at the door. On the morrow this expectation was 
less unreasonable ; but it was not gratified by the 
reappearance of the young man. Neither had he 
written ; there was not a word of explanation or re- 
assurance. Fortunately for Catherine, she could take 
refuge from her excitement, which had now become 
intense, in her determination that her father should 
see nothing of it. How well she deceived her fa- 
ther we shall have occasion to learn ; but her inno- 
cent arts were of little avail before a person of the 
rare perspicacity of Mrs. Penniman. This lady easi- 
ly saw that she was agitated, and if there was any 
agitation going forward, Mrs. Penniman was not a 
person to forfeit her natural share in it. She re- 
turned to the charge the next evening, and requested 
her niece to confide in her — to unburden her heart. 
Perhaps she should be able to explain certain things 
that now seemed dark, and that she knew more 
about than Catherine supposed. If Catherine had 
been frigid the night before, to-day she was haughty. 

‘‘ You are completely mistaken, and I have not 
the least idea what you mean. I don’t know what 
you are trying to fasten on me, and I have never 
had less need of any one’s explanations- in my 
life.” 

In this way the girl delivered herself, and from 
hour to hour kept her aunt at bay. From hour to 
hour Mrs. Pen ni man’s curiosity grew. She would 
have given her little finger to know what Morris 
had said and done, what tone he had taken, what 
pretext he had found. She wrote to him, naturally, 
to request an interview ; but she received, as natu- 


WASHINGTON SQUARE. 


225 


rally, no answer to her petition. Morris was not in 
a writing mood; for Catherine had addressed him 
two short notes which met with no acknowledg- 
ment. These notes were so brief that I may give 
them entire. “Won’t you give me some sign that 
you didn’t mean to be so cruel as you seemed on 
Tuesday ?” — that was the first ; the other was a lit- 
tle longer. “ If I was unreasonable or suspicious 
on Tuesday — if I annoyed you or troubled you in 
any way — I beg your forgiveness, and I promise 
never again to be so foolish. I am punished enough, 
and I don’t understand. Dear Morris, you are kill- 
ing me !” These notes were despatched on the Fri- 
day and Saturday ; but Saturday and Sunday passed 
without bringing the poor girl the satisfaction she 
desired. Her punishment accumulated ; she contin- 
ued to bear it, however, with a good deal of super- 
ficial fortitude. On Saturday morning, the Doctor, 
who had been watching in silence, spoke to his sis- 
ter Lavinia. 

“The thing has happened — the scoundrel has 
backed out !” 

“ Hever !” cried Mrs. Penniman, who had bethought 
herself what she should say to Catherine, but was 
not provided with a line of defence against her 
brother, so that indignant negation was the only 
weapon in her hands. 

“ He has begged for a reprieve, then, if you like 
that better!” 

“It seems to make you very happy that your 
daughter’s affections have been trifled with.” 

“ It does,” said the Doctor ; “ for I had foretold 
it ! It’s a great pleasure to be in the right.” 

15 


226 


WASHINGTON SQUARE. 


“Your pleasures make one shudder!” his sister 
exclaimed. 

Catherine went rigidly through her usual occu- 
pations ; that is, up to the point of going with her 
aunt to church on Sunday morning. She generally 
went to afternoon service as well ; but on this oc- 
casion her courage faltered, and she begged of Mrs. 
Penniman to go without her. 

“I am sure you have a secret,” said Mrs. Penni- 
man, with great significance, looking at her rather 
grimly. 

“ If I have, I shall keep it ?” Catherine answered, 
turning away. 

Mrs. Penniman started for church ; but before 
she had arrived, she stopped and turned back, and 
before twenty minutes had elapsed she re-entered 
the house, looked into the empty parlors, and then 
went up -stairs and knocked at Catherine’s door. 
She got no answer; Catherine was not in her room, 
and Mrs. Penniman presently ascertained that she 
was not in the house. “ She has gone to him ! she 
has fled 1” Lavinia cried, clasping her hands with ad- 
miration and envy. But she soon perceived that 
Catherine had taken nothing with her — all her per- 
sonal property in her room was intact — and then 
she jumped at the hypothesis that the girl had gone 
forth, not in tenderness, but in resentment. “ She 
has followed him to his own door! she has burst 
upon him in his own apartment !” It was iu these 
terms that Mrs. Penniman depicted to herself her 
niece’s errand, wdiich, viewed in this light, gratified 
her sense of the picturesque only a shade less strong- 
ly than the idea of a clandestine marriage. To visit 


WASHINGTON SQUARE. 


227 


one’s lover, with tears and reproaches, at his own 
residence, was an image so agreeable to Mrs. Penni- 
man’s mind that she felt a sort of aesthetic disap- 
pointment at its lacking, in this case, the harmoni- 
ous accompaniments of darkness and storm. A 
quiet Sunday afternoon appeared an inadequate set- 
ting for it ; and, indeed, Mrs. Penniman was quite 
out of humor with the conditions of the time, which 
passed very slowly as she sat in the front parlor, in 
her bonnet and her cashmere shawl, awaiting Cath- 
erine’s return. 

This event at last took place. She saw her — at 
the window — mount the steps, and she went to 
await her in the hall, where she pounced upon her 
as soon as she had entered the house, and drew her 
into the parlor, closing the door with solemnity. 
Catherine was flushed, and her eye was bright. 
Mrs. Penniman hardly knew what to think. 

‘‘ May I venture to ask where you have been ?” 
she demanded. 

“ I have been to take a walk,” said Catherine. 

I thought you had gone to church.” 

“ I did go to church ; but the service was shorter 
tlian usual. And pray where did you walk 

“ I don’t know !” said Catherine. 

Your ignorance is most extraordinary ! Dear 
Catherine, you can trust me.” 

“ What am I to trust you with ?” 

‘‘ With your secret — your sorrow.” 

“ I have no sorrow !” said Catherine, flercely. 

‘‘My poor child,” Mrs. Penniman insisted, “you 
can’t deceive me. I know everything. I have been 
requested to— a — to converse with you.” 


228 


WASHINGTON SQUARE. 


“ I don’t want to converse !” 

‘‘It will relieve you. Don’t you know Shak- 
speare’s lines? — ‘The grief that does not speak!’ 
My dear girl, it is better as it is 1” 

“ What is bettter ?” Catherine asked. ' 

She was really too perverse. A certain amount 
of perversity was to be allowed for in a young lady 
whose lover had thrown her over ; but not such an 
amount as would prove inconvenient to his apolo- 
gists. “That you should be reasonable,” said Mrs. 
Penniman, with some sternness ; “ that you should 
take counsel of worldly prudence, and submit to 
practical considerations; that you should agree to 
— a — separate.” 

Catherine had been ice up to this moment, but at 
this word she flamed up. “Separate? What do 
you know about our separating ?” 

Mrs. Penniman shook her head with a sadness in 
which there was almost a sense of injury. “ Your 
pride is my pride, and your susceptibilities are mine. 
I see your side perfectly, but I also — ” and she 
smiled with melancholy suggestiveness — “ I also see 
the situation as a whole !” 

This suggestiveness was lost upon Catherine, 
who repeated her violent inquiry. “Why do you 
talk about separation; what do you know about 
it?” 

“We must study resignation,” said Mrs. Penni- 
man, hesitating, but sententious at a venture. 

“ Kesignation to what ?” 

“ To a change of — of our plans.” 

“My plans have not changed!” said Catherine, 
with a little laugh. 


WASHINGTON SQUARE. 229 

“Ah, but Mr. Townsend’s have,” her aunt answer- 
ed, very gently. 

“ What do you mean ?” 

There was an imperious brevity in the tone of 
this inquiry, against which Mrs.Penniman felt bound 
to protest ; the information with which she had un- 
dertaken to supply her niece was after all a favor. 
She had tried sharpness, and she had tried sternness ; 
but neither would do ; she was shocked at the girl’s 
obstinacy. “ Ah vrell,” she said, “ if he hasn’t told 
you ! . . .” and she turned away. 

Catherine watched her a moment in silence ; then 
she hurried after her, stopping her before she reach- 
ed the door. “ Told me what ? What do you mean ? 
What are you hinting at and threatening me with ?” 

“ Isn’t it broken off asked Mrs. Pennirnan. 

“ My engagement? Not in the least !” 

“ I beg your pardon in that case. I have spoken 
too soon !” 

“ Too soon ? Soon or late,” Catherine broke out, 
“ you speak foolishly and cruelly !” 

“ What has happened between you then ?” asked 
her aunt, struck by the sincerity of this cry ; “ for 
something certainly has happened.” 

“ Nothing has happened but that I love him more 
and more !” 

Mrs. Pennirnan was silent an instant. “ I suppose 
that’s the reason you went to see him this after- 
noon.” 

Catherine flushed as if she had been struck. “ Yes, 
I did go to see him ! But that’s my own business.” 

“ Very well, then ; we won’t talk about it.” And 
Mrs. Pennirnan moved towai’d the door again ; but 


230 


WASHINGTON SQUARE. 


she was stopped by a sudden imploring cry from 
the girl. 

“ Aunt Lavinia, where has he gone 

“ Ah, you admit then that he has gone away ! 
Didn’t they know at his house?” 

“ They said he had left town. I asked no more 
questions ; I was ashamed,” said Catherine, simply 
enough. 

“ You needn’t have takeri so compromising a step 
if you had had a little more confidence in me,” Mrs. 
Penniman observed, with a good deal of grandeur. 

“ Is it to New Orleans ?” Catherine went on, ir- 
relevantly. 

It was the first time Mrs. Penniman had heard of 
New Orleans in this connection ; but she was averse 
to letting Catherine know that she was in the dark. 
She attempted to strike an illumination from the in- 
structions she had received from Morris. “ My dear 
Catherine,” she said, ‘‘ when a separation has been 
agreed upon, the farther he goes away the better.” 

Agreed upon ? Has he agreed upon it with you ?” 
A consummate sense of her aunt’s meddlesome folly 
had come over her during the last five minutes, and 
she was sickened at the thought that Mrs. Penniman 
had been let loose, as it were, upon her happiness. 

“He certainly has sometimes advised with me,” 
said Mrs. Penniman. 

“ Is it you, then, that has changed him and made 
him so unnatural ?” Catherine cried. “ Is it you that 
liave worked on him and taken him from me? lie 
doesn’t belong to you, and I don’t see how you have 
anything to do with wdiat is between us ! Is it you 
that have made this plot, and told him to leave me ? 


WASHINGTON SQUARE. 


231 


How could you be so wicked, so cruel ? Wliat have 
I ever done to you? Why can’t you leave me alone ? 
I was afraid you would spoil everything ; for you do 
spoil everything you touch ! I was afraid of you 
all the time we were abroad ; I had no rest when I 
thought that you were always talking to him.” Cath- 
erine went on with growing vehemence, pouring out, 
in her bitterness and in the clairvoyance of her pas- 
sion (which suddenly, jumping all processes, made 
her judge her aunt finally and witliout appeal), the 
uneasiness which had lain for so many months upon 
her heart. 

Mrs. Penniman was scared and bewildered ; she 
saw no prospect of introducing her little account of 
the purity of Morris’s motives. “You are a most 
ungrateful girl !” she cried. “ Do you scold me for 
talking with him ? I’m sure w^e never talked of 
anything but you !” 

“Yes; and that was the way you worried him ; 
you made him tired of my very name ! I wish you 
had never spoken of me to him ; I never asked your 
help !” 

“ I am sure if it hadn’t been for me he would 
never have come to the house, and you would nev- 
er have known that he thought of you,” Mrs. Pen- 
niman rejoined, with a good deal of justice. 

“I wish he never had come to the house, and that 
I never had known it ! That’s better than this,” said 
poor Catherine. 

“You are a very ungrateful girl,” Aunt Lavinia 
repeated. 

Catherine’s outbreak of anger and the sense of 
wrong gave her, while they lasted, the satisfaction 


282 


WASHINGTON SQUARE. 


that comes from all assertion of force; they hurried 
her along, and^there is always a sort of pleasure in 
cleaving the air.'- But at bottom she hated to be 
violent, and she was conscious of no aptitude for 
organized resentment. She calmed herself with a 
great effort, but with great rapidity, and walked 
about the room a few moments, trying to say to 
herself that her aunt had meant everything for the 
best. She did not succeed in saying it with much 
conviction, but after a little she was able to speak 
quietly enough. 

“ I am not ungrateful, but I am very unhappy. 
It’s hard to be grateful for that,” she said. ‘‘ Will 
you please tell me where he is ?” 

I haven’t the least idea; I am not in secret corre- 
spondence with him !” And Mrs. Penniman wished, 
indeed, that she were, so that she might let him know 
how Catherine abused her, after all she had done. 

‘AYas it a plan of his, then, to break off — ?” By 
this time Catherine had become completely quiet. 

Mrs. Penniman began again to have a glimpse of 
her chance for explaining. “ He shrunk — he shrunk,” 
she said; ‘‘he lacked courage, but it was the cour- 
age to injure you ! He couldn’t bear to bring down 
on you your father’s curse.” 

Catherine listened to this with her eyes fixed upon 
her aunt, and continued to gaze at her for some time 
afterward. “ Did he tell you to say that ?” 

“ He told me to say many things — all so delicate, 
so discriminating ; and he told me to tell you he 
hoped you wouldn’t despise him.” 

“ I don’t,” said Catherine ; and then she added, 
“ And will he stay away forever ?” 


WASHINGTON SQUARE. 233 

‘‘Oh, forever is a long time. Your father, per- 
haps, won’t live forever.” 

“ Perhaps not.” 

“I am sure you appreciate — you understand — 
even though your heart bleeds,” said Mrs. Penni- 
man. “You doubtless think him too scrupulous. 
So do I, but I respect his scruples. What he asks 
of you is that you should do the same.” 

Catherine was still gazing at her aunt, but she 
spoke at last as if she had not heard or not under- 
stood her. “It has been a regular plan, then. He 
has broken it off deliberately ; he has given me up.” 

“ For the present, dear Catherine ; he has put it 
off, only.” 

“ He has left me alone,” Catherine went on. 

“Haven’t you meV'* asked Mrs. Penniman, with 
some solemnity. 

Catherine shook her head slowly. “ I don’t be- 
lieve it !” and she left the room. 


XXXI. 

Though she had forced herself to be calm, she 
preferred practising this virtue in private, and she 
forbore to show herself at tea — a repast which, on 
Sundays, at six o’clock, took the place of dinner. 
Doctor Sloper and his sister sat face to face, but Mrs. 
Penniman never met her brother’s eye. Late in the 
evening she went with him, but without Catherine, 
to their sister Almond’s, where, between the two 
ladies, Catherine’s unhappy situation was discussed 
witii a frankness that was conditioned by a good 


234 


WASHINGTON SQUARE. 


deal of mysterious reticence on Mrs. Penniman’s 
part. 

“I am delighted he is not to marry her,” said 
Mrs. Almond, but he ought to be horsewhipped all 
the same.” 

Mrs. Penniman, who was shocked at her sister’s 
coarseness, replied that he liad been actuated by the 
noblest of motives — the desire not to impoverish 
Catherine. 

‘‘ I am very happy that Catherine is not to be im- 
poverished — but I hope he may never have a pen- 
ny too much ! And wliat does the poor girl say to 
you Mrs. Almond asked. 

“ She says I have a genius for consolation,” said 
Mrs. Penniman. 

This was the account of the matter that she gave 
to her sister, and it was perhaps witli the conscious- 
ness of genius that, on her return that evening to 
Washington Square, she again presented herself for 
admittance at Catherine’s door. Catherine came 
and opened it ; she was apparently very quiet. 

I only want to give you a little word of advice,” 
slie said. “If your father asks you, say that everj^- 
thing is going on.” 

Catherine stood there, witli her hand on the knob, 
looking at her aunt, but not asking her to come in. 
“ Do you think he will ask me ?” 

“ I am sure he will. He asked me just now, on 
our way home from your aunt Elizabeth’s. I ex- 
plained the whole thing to your aunt Elizabeth. I 
said to your father I knew notliing about it.” 

“ Do you think he will ask me, when he sees — 
when he sees — ?” But here Catherine stopped. 


WASHINGTON SQUARE. 235 

Tlie more he sees, the more disagreeable lie will 
be,” said her aunt. 

“ He shall see as little as possible !” Catherine de- 
clared. 

Tell him you are to be married.” 

“ So I am,” said Catherine, softly ; and she closed 
the door upon her aunt. 

She could not have said this two days later — for 
instance, on Tuesday, when she at last received a 
letter from Morris Townsend. It w^as an epistle of 
considerable length, measuring five large square 
pages, and written at Philadelphia. It was an ex- 
planatory document, and it explained a great many 
things, chief among which were the considerations 
that had led the writer to take advantage of an ur- 
gent “ professional ” absence to try and banish from 
his mind the image of one whose path he had cross- 
ed only to scatter it with ruins. He ventured to ex- 
pect but partial success in this attempt, but he could 
promise her that, whatever his failure, he would nev- 
er again interpose between her generous heart and 
her brilliant prospects and filial duties. He closed 
with an intimation that his professional pursuits 
might compel him to travel for some months, and 
with the hope that when they should each have ac- 
commodated themselves to what was sternly involved 
in their respective positions — even should this re- 
sult not be reached for years — they should meet as 
friends, as fellow -sufferers, as innocent but philo- 
sophic victims of a great social' law. That her life 
should be peaceful and happy was the dearest wish 
of him who ventured still to subscribe himself her 
most obedient servant. The letter was beautifully 


236 


WASHINGTON SQUARE. 


written, and Catherine, who kept it for many years 
after this, was able, when her sense of the bitterness 
of its meaning and the hollowness of its tone had 
grown less acute, to admire its grace of expression. 
At present, for a long time after she received it, all 
she had to help her was the determination, daily 
more rigid, to make no appeal to the compassion of 
her father. 

He suffered a week to elapse, and then one day, in 
the morning, at an hour at which she rarely saw him, 
he strolled into the back parlor. He had watched 
his time, and he found her alone. She was sitting 
with some work, and he came and stood in front of 
her. He was going out ; he had on his hat, and was 
drawing on his gloves. 

“It doesn’t seem to me that you are treating me 
just now with all the consideration I deserve,” he 
said in a moment. 

“ I don’t know what I have done,” Catherine an- 
swered, with her eyes on her work. 

“You have apparently quite banished from your 
mind the request I made you at Liverpool before we 
sailed — the request that you would notify me in ad- 
vance before leaving my house.” 

“ I have not left your house,” said Catherine. 

“ But you intend to leave it, and, by what you gave 
me to understand, your departure must be impend- 
ing. In fact, though you are still here in body, you 
are already absent in spirit. Your mind has taken 
up its residence with your prospective husband, and 
you might quite as well be lodged under the conju- 
gal roof for all the benefit we get from your so- 
ciety.” 


WASHINGTON SQUARE. 


237 


“ I will try and be more cheerful,” said Catherine. 

“ You certainly ought to be cheerful ; you ask a 
great deal if you are not. To the pleasure of mar- 
rying a charming young man you add that of hav- 
ing your own way ; you strike me as a very lucky 
young lady !” 

Catherine got up ; she was suffocating. But she 
folded her work deliberately and correctly, bending 
her burning face upon it. Her father stood where 
he had planted himself ; she hoped he would go, but 
he smoothed and buttoned his gloves, and then he 
rested his hands upon his hips. 

It would be a convenience to me to know when 
I may expect to have an empty house,” he went on. 
“ W-hen you go, your aunt marches.” 

She looked at him at last, with a long, silent gaze, 
which, in spite of her pride and her resolution, ut- 
tered part of the appeal she had tried not to make. 
Her father’s cold gray eye sounded her own, and he 
insisted on his point. 

Is it to-morrow ? Is it next week, or the week 
after ?” 

“ I shall not go away !” said Catherine. 

The Doctor raised his eyebrows. “ Has he backed 
out ?” 

I have broken off my engagement.” 

“ Broken it off ?” 

“I have asked him to leave Hew York, and he 
has gone away for a long time.” 

The Doctor was both puzzled and disappointed, 
but he solved his perplexity by saying to himself 
that his daughter simply misrepresented— justifia- 
bly, if one would, but nevertheless, misrepresented — 


238 


WASHINGTON SQUARE. 


the facts ; and he eased off his disappointment, which 
was that of a man losing a chance for a little tri- 
umph that he had rather counted on, bj a few w’ords 
that he uttered aloud. 

“ How does he take his dismissal 

“ I don’t know !” said Catherine, less ingeniously 
than she had hitherto spoken. 

‘‘You mean you don’t care? Y"ou are rather 
cruel, after encouraging him and playing with him 
for so long !” 

The Doctor had his revenge, after all. 


XXXII. 

Our story has hitherto moved wdth very short 
steps, but as it approaches its termination it must 
take a long stride. As time went on, it might have 
appeared to the Doctor that his daughter’s account 
of her rupture with Morris Townsend, mere bravado 
as he had deemed it, was in some degree justified by 
the sequel. Morris remained as rigidly and unre- 
mittingly absent as if he had died of a broken heart, 
and Catherine had apparently buried the memory 
of this fruitless episode as deep as if it had ter- 
minated by her own choice. We know that she 
had been deeply and incurably wounded, but the 
Doctor had no means of knowing it. He was cer- 
tainly curious about it, and would have given a good 
deal to discover the exact truth ; but it was his pun- 
ishment that he never knew — his punishment, I 
mean, for the abuse of sarcasm in his relations with 
his daughter. There was a good deal of effective 


WASHINGTON SQUARE. 


239 


sarcasm in her keeping him in the dark, and the rest 
of the world conspired with lier, in this sense, to be 
sarcastic. Mrs. Penniman told him notliing, partly 
because he never questioned her — he made too light 
of Mrs. Penniman for that — and partly because she 
flattered herself that a tormenting reserve, and a 
serene profession of ignorance, would avenge her 
for his theory that she had meddled in the matter. 
He w^ent two or three times to see Mrs. Montirom- 
ery, but Mrs. Montgomery had nothing to impart. 
She simply knew that her brothePs engagement was 
broken off; and now that Miss Sloper was out of 
danger, she preferred not to bear witness in any 
way against Morris. She had done so before — how- 
ever unwillingly — because she was sorry for Miss 
Sloper ; but she was not sorry for Miss Sloper now 
— not at all sorry. Morris had told her nothing 
about his relations with Miss Sloper at the time, 
and he had told her nothing since. He was always 
away, and he very seldom wrote to her ; she believed 
he had gone to California. Mrs. Almond had, in 
her sister’s phrase, “ taken up” Catherine violently 
since the recent catastrophe; but, though the girl 
was very grateful to her for her kindness, she re- 
vealed no secrets, and the good lady could give the 
Doctor no satisfaction. Even, however, had she 
been able to narrate to him the private history of 
his daughter’s unhappy love affair, it would have 
given her a certain comfort to leave him in igno- 
rance ; for Mrs. Almond was at this time not alto- 
gether in sympathy wdth her brother. She had 
guessed for herself that Catherine had been cruelly 
jilted — she knew nothing from Mrs. Penniman, for 


240 


WASHINGTON SQUARE. 


Mrs. Penniinan had not ventured to lay the famous 
explanation of Morris’s motives before Mrs. Almond, 
though she had thought it good enough for Cathe- 
rine — and she pronounced her brother too consistent- 
ly indifferent to what the poor creature must have 
suffered and must still be suffering. Doctor Sloper 
had his theory, and he rarely altered his theories. 
The marriage would have been an abominable one, 
and the girl had had a blessed escape. She was not 
to be pitied for that, and to pretend to condole with 
her would have been to make concessions to the 
idea that she had ever had a right to think of 
Morris. 

“ I put my foot on this idea from the first, and I 
keep it there now,” said the Doctor. “I don’t see 
anything cruel in that ; one can’t keep it there too 
long.” To this Mrs. Almond more than once re- 
plied that, if Catherine had got rid of her incongru- 
ous lover, she deserved the credit of it, and that to 
bring herself to her father’s enlightened view of the 
matter must have cost her an effort that he was 
bound to appreciate. 

“ I am by no means sure she has got rid of him,” 
the Doctor said. “ There is not the smallest proba- 
bility that, after having been as obstinate as a mule 
for two years, she suddenly became amenable to rea- 
son. It is infinitely more probable that he got rid 
of her.” 

“All the more reason you should be gentle with 
her.” 

“I am gentle with her. But I can’t do the pa- 
thetic ; I can’t pump up tears, to look graceful, over 
the most fortunate thing that ever happened to her.” 


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241 


“ You have no sympathy,” said Mrs. Almond ; 
“ that was never your strong point. You have only 
to look at her to see that, right or wrong, and wheth- 
er the rupture came from herself or from him, her 
poor little heart is grievously bruised.” 

“Handling bruises, and even dropping tears on 
them, doesn’t make them any better! My busi- 
ness is to see she gets no more knocks, and that 
I shall carefully attend to. But I don’t at all rec- 
ognize your description of Catherine. She doesn’t 
strike me in the least as a young woman going 
about in search of a moral poultice. In fact, she 
seems to me much better than while the fellow was 
hanging about. She is perfectly comfortable and 
blooming ; she eats and sleeps, takes her usual ex- 
ercise, and overloads herself, as usual, with finery. 
She is always knitting some purse or embroidering 
some handkerchief, and it seems to me she turns 
these articles out about as fast as ever. She hasn’t 
much to say ; but when had she anything to say ? 
She had her little dance, and now she is sitting down 
to rest. I suspect that, on the whole, she enjoys it.” 

“She enjoys it as people^ enjoy getting rid of a 
leg that has been crushed. The state of mind after 
amputation is doubtless one of comparative repose.” 

“ If your leg is a metaphor for young Townsend, 
I can assure you he has never been crushed. Crush- 
ed? Hot he! He is alive and perfectly intact; 
and that’s why I am not satisfied.” 

“ Should you have liked to kill him ?” asked Mrs. 
Almond. 

“ Yes, very much. I think it is quite possible that 
it is all a blind.” 


16 


242 


WASHINGTON SQUARE. 


“A blind?” ^ . 

“ An arrangement between them. II fait le mart, 
as they say in France ; but he is looking out of *the 
corner of his eye. You can depend upon it, he has 
not burnt his ships ; he has kept one to come back 
in. When I am dead, he will set sail again, and then 
she will marry him.” 

‘‘It is interesting to know that yon accuse your 
only daughter of being the vilest of hypocrites,” 
said Mrs. Almond. 

“I don’t see what difference her being my only 
dauirhter makes. It is better to accuse one than a 
dozen. But I don’t accuse any one. There is not 
the smallest hypocrisy about Catherine, and I deny 
that she even pretends to be miserable.” 

The Doctor’s idea that the thing was a “ blind ” 
had its intermissions and revivals; but it may be 
said, on the whole, to have increased as he grew old- 
er ; together with his impressions of Catherine’s 
blooming and comfortable condition. I^atu rally, if 
he had not found grounds for viewing her as a love- 
lorn maiden during the year or two that followed 
her great trouble, he found none at a time when she 
had completely recovered her self-possession. He 
w^as obliged to recognize the fact that, if the two 
young people were waiting for him to get out of 
the way, they w^ere at least waiting very patiently. 
He had heard from time to time that Morris was in 
Hew York; but he never remained there long, and, 
to the best of the Doctor’s belief, had no commu- 
nication with Catherine. He was sure they never 
met, and he had reason to suspect that Morris never 
wrote to her. After the letter that has been men- 


WASHINGTON SQUARE. 


243 


tioned, she heard from him twice again, at consider- 
able intervals ; but on none of these occasions did 
she write herself. On the other hand, as the Doc- 
tor observed, she averted herself rigidly from the 
idea of marrying other people. Her opportunities 
for doing so were not numerous, but they occurred 
often enough to test her disposition. She refused a 
widower, a man with a genial temperament, a hand- 
some fortune, and three little girls (he had heard 
that she w^as very fond of children, and he pointed 
to his own with some confidence) ; and she turned a 
deaf ear to the solicitations of a clever young law- 
yer, who, with the prospect of a great practice, and 
the reputation of a most agreeable man, had had the 
shrewdness, when he came to look about him for a 
wife, to believe that she would suit him better than 
several younger and prettier girls. Mr. Macalister, 
the widow’er, had desired to make a marriage of rea- 
son, and had chosen Catherine for what he supposed 
to be her latent matronly qualities'; but John Lud- 
low, who was a year the girl’s junior, and spoken of 
always as a young man who might have his “ pick,” 
was seriously in love with her. Catherine, how- 
ever, would never look at him ; she made it plain 
to him tliat she thought he came to see her too of- 
ten. He afterward consoled himself, and married a 
very different person, little Miss Sturtevant, wLose 
attractions were obvious to the dullest comprehen- 
sion. Catherine, at the time of these events, had 
left her thirtieth year well behind her, and had quite 
taken her place as an old maid. Her father would 
have preferred she should marry, and he once told 
her that he lioped she would not be too fastidious. 


244 


WASHINGTON SQUARE. 


“ I should like to see you an honest man’s wife be- 
fore I die,” he said. This was after John Ludlow 
had been compelled to give it up, though the Doc- 
tor had advised him to persevere. The Doctor ex- 
ercised no further pressure, and had the credit of 
not ‘^worrying” at all over his daughter’s single- 
ness; in fact, he worried rather more than appeared, 
and there were considerable periods during whicli 
he felt sure that Morris Townsend was hidden be- 
hind some door. ‘‘ If he is not, why doesn’t she 
marry?” he asked himself. “Limited as her intel- 
ligence may be, she must understand perfectly w^ell 
that she is made to do the usual thing.” Catherine, 
however, became an admirable old maid. She form- 
ed habits, regulated her days upon a system of her 
own, interested herself in charitable institutions, 
asylums, hospitals, and aid societies; and went gen- 
erally, with an even and noiseless step, about the 
rigid business of her life. This life had, however, a 
secret history as well as a public one — if I may talk 
of the public history of a mature and diffident spin- 
ster for whom publicity had always a combination 
of terrors. From her own point of view the great 
facts of her career were that Morris Townsend had 
trifled with her affection, and that her father had 
broken its spring. Nothing could ever alter these 
facts ; they were always there, like her name, her 
age, her plain face. Nothing could ever undo the 
wrong or cure the pain that Morris had inflicted on 
her, and notliing could ever make her feel toward 
her father as she felt in her younger years. There 
was something dead in her life, and her duty was 
to try and All the void. Catherine recognized this 


WASHINGTON SQUAEE. 


245 


duty to the utmost ; she had a great disapproval of 
brooding and moping. She had, of course, no fac- 
ulty for quenching memory in dissipation ; but she 
mingled freely in the usual gayeties of the town, 
and she became at last an inevitable figure at all 
respectable entertainments. She was greatly liked, 
and as time went on she grew to be a sort of kind- 
ly maiden -aunt to the younger portion of society. 
Young girls w^ere apt to confide to her their love 
affairs (which they never did to Mrs. Penniman), 
and young men to be fond of her without knowing 
why. She developed a few harmless eccentricities ; 
her habits, once formed, were rather stiffly maintain- 
ed ; her opinions, on all moral and social matters, 
were extremely conservative ; and before she was 
forty she was regarded as an old-fashioned person, 
and an authority on customs that had passed away. 
Mrs. Penniman, in comparison, was quite a girlish 
figure; she grew younger as she advanced in life. 
She lost nojie of her relish for beauty and mystery, 
but she had little opportunity to exercise it. With 
Catherine’s later wooers she failed to establish rela- 
tions as intimate as those which had given her so 
many interesting hours in the society of Morris 
Townsend. These gentlemen had an indefinable 
mistrust of her good offices, and they never talked 
to her about Catherine’s charms. Her ringlets, her 
buckles and bangles glistened more brightly with 
each succeeding year, and she remained quite the 
same ofiScious and imaginative Mrs. Penniman, and 
the odd mixture of impetuosity and circumspection, 
that we have hitherto known. As regards one point, 
liowever, her circumspection prevailed, and she must 


246 


WASHINGTON SQUARE. 


be given due credit for it. For upward of seven- 
teen years she never mentioned Morris Townsend’s 
name to her niece. Catherine was grateful to her, 
but this consistent silence, so little in accord with 
her aunt’s character, gave her a certain alarm, and 
she could never wholly rid herself of a suspicion 
that Mrs. Penniman sometimes had news of him. 


XXXIIL 

Little by little Doctor Sloper had retired from 
his profession ; he visited only those patients in 
whose symptoms he recognized a certain originality. 
He went again to Europe, and remained two years ; 
Catherine went with him, and on this occasion Mrs. 
Penniman was of the party. Europe apparently 
had few surprises for Mrs. Penniman, who frequent- 
ly remarked, in the most romantic sites, “ You know 
I am very familiar with all this.” It should be add- 
ed that such remarks were usually not addressed to 
her brother, or yet to her niece, but to fellow-tourists 
who happened to be at hand, or even to the cicerone 
or the goatherd in the foreground. 

One day, after his return from Europe, the Doc- 
tor said something to his daughter that made her 
start — it seemed to come from so far out of the 
past. 

I should like you to promise me something be- 
fore I die.” 

“ Why do you talk about your dying ?” she asked. 

“ Because I am sixty-eight years old.” 


WASHINGTON SQUARE. 247 

“ I hope you will live a long time,” said Cathe- 
rine. 

I hope I shall ! But some day I sliall take a 
bad cold, and then it will not matter much what any 
one hopes. That will be the manner of my exit, 
and when it takes place, remember I told 3^11 so. 
Promise me not to marry Morris Townsend after 
I am gone.” 

This was what made Catherine start, as I have 
said ; but her start was a silent one, and for some 
moments she said nothing. TVhy do you speak of 
him ?” she asked at last. 

“You challenge everything I say. I speak of 
him because he’s a topic, like any other. He’s to be 
seen, like any one else, and he is still looking for a 
wife — having had one and got rid of her, I don’t 
know by what means. He has lately been in New 
York, and at your cousin Marian’s house; your aunt 
Elizabeth saw him there.” 

“They neither of them told me,” said Catherine. 

“ That’s their merit ; it’s not yours. He has grown 
fat and bald, and he has not made his fortune. But 
I can’t trust those facts alone to steel your heart 
against him, and that’s why I ask you to promise.” 

“ Fat and bald these words presented a strange 
image to Catherine’s mind, out of which the mem- 
ory of the most beautiful young man in the world 
had never faded. “I don’t think 3’'ou understand,” 
she said. “ I very seldom think of Mr. Townsend.” 

“ It will be very easy for you to go on, then. 
Promise me, after my death, to do the same.” 

Again, for some moments, Catherine was silent ; 
her father’s request deeply amazed her ; it opened 


248 


WASHINGTON SQUARE. 


an old wound, and made it ache afresh. I don’t 
think I can promise that,” she answered. 

“ It would be a great satisfaction,” said her father. 

“You don’t understand. I can’t promise that.” 

The Doctor was silent a minute. “ I ask you for a 
particular reason. I am altering my will.” 

This reason failed to strike Catherine ; and indeed 
she scarcely understood it. All her feelings were 
merged in the sense that he was trying to treat her 
as he had treated her years before. She had suffered 
from it then ; and now all her experience, all her 
acquired tranquillity and rigidity protested. She 
had been so humble in her youth that she could 
now afford to have a little pride, and there was some- 
thing in this request, and in her father’s thinking 
himself so free to make it, that seemed an injury to 
her dignity. Poor Catherine’s dignity was not ag- 
gressive; it never sat in state; but if you pushed 
far enough you could find it. Her father had push- 
ed very far. 

“ I can’t promise,” she simply repeated. 

“You are very obstinate,” said the Doctor. 

“ I don’t think you understand.” 

“Please explain, then.” 

“ I can’t explain,” said Catherine ; “ and I can’t 
promise.” 

“ Upon my word,” her father exclaimed, “ I had 
no idea how obstinate you are !” 

She knew herself that she was obstinate, and it 
gave her a certain joy. She was now a middle-aged 
woman. 

About a year after this, the accident that the Doc- 
tor had spoken of occurred : he took a violent cold. 


WASHINGTON SQUARE. 


249 


Driving ont to Bloomingdale one April day to see 
a patient of unsound mind, who was confined in a 
private asylum for the insane, and whose family 
greatly desired a medical opinion from an eminent 
source, he was caught in a spring shower, and being 
in a buggy, without a hood, he found himself soaked 
to the skin. He came home with an ominous chill, 
and on the morrow he was seriously ill. “ It is con- 
gestion of the lungs,” he said to Catherine ; I shall 
need very good nursing. It will make no difiler- 
ence, for I shall not recover ; but I wish everything 
to be done, to the smallest detail, as if I should. I 
hate an ill-conducted sick-room, and you will be so 
good as to nurse me, on the hypothesis that I shall 
get well.” He told her which of his fellow-physi- 
cians to send for, and gave her a multitude of mi- 
nute directions ; it was quite on the optimistic hy- 
pothesis that she nursed him. But he had never 
been wrong in his life, and he was not wrong now. 
He was touching his seventieth year, and though he 
had a very well-tempered constitution, his hold upon 
life had lost its firmness. He died after three weeks’ 
illness, during which Mrs. Penniman, as well as his 
daughter, had been assiduous at his bedside. 

On his will being opened, after a decent interval, 
it was found to consist of two portions. The first 
of these dated from ten years back, and consisted of 
a series of dispositions by which he left the great 
mass of his property to his daughter, with becoming 
leD:acies to his two sisters. The second was a codicil, 
of recent origin, maintaining the annuities to Mrs. 
Penniman and Mrs. Almond, but reducing Cathe- 
rine’s share to a fifth of what he had first bequeathed 


250 


WASHINGTON SQUARE. 


her. ‘‘She is amply provided for from her moth- 
er’s side,” the document ran, “ never having spent 
more than a fraction of her income from this source ; 
so that her fortune is already more than sufficient to 
attract those unscrupulous adventurers whom she 
has given me reason to believe that she persists in 
regarding as an interesting class.” Tlie large re- 
mainder of his property, tlierefore. Doctor Sloper 
liad divided into seven unequal parts, which he left, 
as endowments, to as many different hospitals and 
schools of medicine in various cities of the Union. 

To Mrs. Penniman it seemed monstrous that a 
man should play such tricks with other people’s 
money ; for after his death, of course, as she said, 
it was other people’s. “ Of course, you will imme- 
diately break the will,” she remarked to Catherine. 

“Oh no,” Catherine answered, “I like it very 
much. Only I wish it had been expressed a little 
differently !” 


XXXIY. 

It was her habit to remain in town very late in 
the summer; she preferred the house in Washing- 
ton Square to any other habitation whatever, and it 
was under protest that she used to go to the sea-side 
for the month of August. At the sea she spent her 
month at an hotel. The year that her father died 
she intermitted this custom altoojether, not thinkino: 
it consistent with deep mourning ; and the year af- 
ter that she put off her departure till so late that the 
middle of August found her still in the heated soli- 


WASHINGTON SQUARE. 


251 


tude of Washington Square. Mrs. Penniman, who 
was fond of a change, was usually eager for a visit 
to the country ; but this year she appeared quite 
content with such rural impressions as she could 
gather at the parlor-window from the ailantus-trees 
behind the wooden paling. The peculiar fragrance 
of this vegetation used to diffuse itself in the even- 
ing air, and Mrs. Penniman, on the warm nights of 
July, often sat at the open wdndow and inhaled it. 
This was a happy moment for Mrs. Penniman ; af- 
ter the death of her brother she felt more free to 
obey her impulses. A vague oppression had disap- 
peared from her life, and she enjoyed a sense of 
freedom of wdiich she had not been conscious since 
the memorable time, so long ago, when the Doctor 
went abroad with Catherine and left her at liome to 
entertain Morris Townsend. The year that had 
elapsed since her brother’s death reminded her of 
that happy time, because, although Catherine, in 
growing older, had become a person to be reckoned 
with, yet her society was a very different thing, as 
Mrs. Penniman said, from that of a tank of cold wa- 
ter. The elder lady hardly knew what use to make 
of this larger margin of her life ; she sat and looked 
at it very much as she had often sat, with her poised 
needle in her hand, before her tapestry-frame. She 
had a confident hope, however, that her rich im- 
pulses, her talent for embroidery, would still find 
their application, and this confidence was justified 
before many months had elapsed. 

Catherine continued to live in her father’s house, 
in spite of its being represented to her that a maid- 
en lady of quiet habits might find a more conven- 


252 


WASHINGTON SQUARE. 


ient abode in one of the smaller dwellings, with 
brown stone fronts, which had at this time begun to 
adorn the transverse thoroughfares in the upper part 
of the town. She liked the earlier structure — it had 
begun by this time to be called an “ old ” house — 
and proposed to herself to end her days in it. If it 
was too large for a pair of unpretending gentlewom- 
en, this was better than the opposite fault; for Cathe- 
rine had no desire to find herself in closer quarters 
with her aunt. She expected to spend the rest of 
her life in Washington Square, and to enjoy Mrs. 
Penniman’s society for the whole of this period ; as 
she had a conviction that, long as she might live, 
her aunt would live at least as long, and always re- 
tain her brilliancy and . activity. Mrs. Penniman 
suggested to her the idea of a rich vitality. 

On one of those warm evenings in July of which 
mention has been made, the two ladies sat together 
at an open window, looking out on the quiet Square. 
It was too hot for lighted lamps, for reading, or for 
work ; it might have appeared too hot even for con- 
versation, Mrs. Penniman having long been speech- 
less. She sat forward in the window, half on the 
balcony, humming a little song. Catherine was with- 
in the room, in a low rocking-chair, dressed in white, 
and slowly using a large palmetto fan. It was in 
this way, at this season, that the aunt and niece, after 
they had had tea, habitually spent their evenings. 

“ Catherine,” said Mrs. Penniman at last, “ I am 
going to say something that wfill surprise you.” 

‘‘Pray do,” Catherine answered ; “I like surprises. 
And it is so quiet now.” 

“ Well, then, I have seen Morris Townsend.” 


WASHINGTON SQUARE. 


253 


If Catherine was surprised, slie checked the ex- 
pression of it ; she gave neither a start nor an ex- 
clamation. She remained, indeed, for some mo- 
ments intensely still, and this may very well have 
been a symptom of emotion. I hope he was well,” 
she said at last. 

“ I don’t know ; he is a great deal changed. He 
would like very much to see you.” 

‘‘I would rather not see him,” said Catherine, 
quickly. 

“ I was afraid you would say that. But you don’t 
seem surprised !” 

“ I am — very much.” 

“ I met him at Marian’s,” said Mrs. Penniman. 
“ He goes to Marian’s, and they are so afraid you 
will meet him there. It’s my belief that that’s why 
he goes. He wants so much to see you.” Cathe- 
rine made no response to this, and Mrs. Penniman 
went on. ‘‘ I didn’t know him at first, he is so re- 
markably changed; but he knew me in a minute. 
He says I am not in the least changed. You know 
how polite he always was. He was coming away 
when I came, and we walked a little distance to- 
gether. He is still very handsome, only of course 
he looks older, and he is not so — so animated 
as he used to be. There was a touch of sadness 
about him ; but there was a touch of sadness about 
him before, especially when he went away. I am 
afraid he has not been very successful — that he has 
never got thoroughly established. I don’t suppose 
he is sufficiently plodding, and that, after all, is what 
succeeds in this world.” Mrs. Penniman had not 
mentioned Morris Townsend’s name to her niece for 


254 


WASHINGTON SQUARE. 


upwards of the fifth of a century ; but now that she 
had broken the spell, she seemed to wish to make 
up for lost time, as if there had been a sort of ex- 
hilaration in hearing herself talk of him. She pro- 
ceeded, however, with considerable caution, pausing 
occasionally to let Catherine give some sign. Cathe- 
rine gave no other sign than to stop the rocking of 
her chair and the swaying of her fan ; she sat mo- 
tionless and silent. “ It was on Tuesday last,” said 
Mrs. Penniman, and I have been hesitating ever 
since about telling you. I didn’t know how you 
might like it. At last I thought that it was so long 
ago that you would probably not have any particu- 
lar feeling. I saw him again after meeting him at 
Marian’s. I met him in the street, and he went a 
few steps with me. The first thing he said was 
about you ; he asked ever so many questions. Ma- 
rian didn’t want me to speak to you ; she didn’t 
want you to know that tliey receive him. I told 
him I was sure that after all these years you couldn’t 
have any feeling about that; you couldn’t grudge 
him the hospitality of his owm cousin’s house. I 
said you would be bitter indeed if you did that. 
Marian has the most extraordinary ideas about what 
happened between you; she seems to think he be- 
haved in some very unusual manner. I took the 
liberty of reminding her of the real facts, and plac- 
ing the story in its true light. lie has no bitterness, 
Catherine, I can assure you ; and he might be ex- 
cused for it, for things have not gone well with him. 
He has been all over the world, and tried to estab- 
lish himself everywhere ; but his evil star was against 
him. It is most interesting to hear him talk of his 


WASHINGTON SQUARE. 


255 


evil star. Everything failed ; everything but his — 
you know, you remember — his proud, high spirit. 
I believe he married some lady somewhere in Europe. 
You know they marry in such a peculiar matter-of- 
course way in Europe; a marriage of reason they 
call it. She died soon afterward ; as he said to me, 
she only flitted across his life. He has not been in 
New York for ten years; he came back a few days 
ago. The flrst thing he did was to ask me about 
you. He had heard you had never married ; he 
seemed very much interested about tliat. He said 
you had been the real romance of his life.” 

Catherine had suffered her companion to proceed 
from point to point, and pause to pause, without in- 
terrupting her ; she fixed her eyes on the ground 
and listened. But the last phrase I have quoted was 
followed by a pause of peculiar significance, and then, 
at last, Catherine spoke. It will be observed that 
before doing so she had received a good deal of in- 
formation about Morris Townsend. Please say no 
more; please don’t follow up that subject.” 

‘‘Doesn’t it interest you?” asked Mrs. Penniman, 
with a certain timorous archness. 

“ It pains me,” said Catherine. 

“ I was afraid you would say that. But don’t you 
think you could get used to it ? He wants so much 
to see you.” 

“ Please don’t, Aunt Lavinia,” said Catherine, get- 
ting up from her seat. She moved quickly away, 
and went to the other window, which stood open to 
the balcony ; and here, in the embrasure, concealed 
from her aunt by the white curtains, she remained 
a long time, looking out into the warm darkness. 


256 


WASHINGTON SQUARE. 


She had had a great shock ; it was as if the gulf of 
the past had suddenly opened, and a spectral figure 
had risen out of it. There were some things she 
believed she had got over, some feelings that she 
had thought of as dead; but apparently there was 
a certain vitality in them still. Mrs. Penniman had 
made them stir themselves. It was but a momen- 
tary agitation, Catherine said to herself ; it would 
presently pass away. She was trembling, and her 
heart was beating so that she could feel it ; but this 
also would subside. Then suddenly, while she wait- 
ed for a return of her calmness, she burst into tears. 
But her tears flowed very silently, so that Mrs. Pen- 
niman had no observation of them. It was perhaps, 
however, because Mrs. Penniman suspected them 
that she said no more that evening about Morris 
Townsend. 


xxxy. 

Her refreshed attention to this gentleman had 
not those limits of which Catherine desired, for her- 
self, to be conscious ; it lasted long enough to enable 
her to wait another week before speaking of him 
again. It was under the same circumstances that 
she once more attacked the subject. She had been 
sitting with her niece in the evening; only on this 
occasion, as the night was not so warm, the lamp 
had been lighted, and Catherine had placed herself 
near it with a morsel of fancy-work. Mrs. Penni- 
man went and sat alone for half an hour on the bal- 
cony ; then she came in, moving vaguely about the 


WASHINGTON SQUARE. 


257 


room. At last she sunk into a seat near Catherine, 
with clasped hands, and a little look of excitement. 

‘‘ Shall you be angry if I speak to you again about 
him she asked. 

Catherine looked up at her quietly. ‘‘ Who is heT'^ 

“He whom you once loved.” 

“ I shall not be angry, but I shall not like it.” 

“He sent you a message,” said Mrs. Penniman. 
“ I promised him to deliver it, and I must keep my 
promise.” 

In all these years Catherine had had time to for- 
get how little she had to thank her aunt for in the 
season of her misery ; she had long ago forgiven 
Mrs. Penniman for taking too much upon herself. 
But for a moment this attitude of interposition and 
disinterestedness, this carrying of messages and re- 
deeming of promises, brought back the sense that 
her companion was a dangerous woman. She had 
said she would not be angry ; but for an instant she 
felt sore. “I don’t care what you do with your 
promise !” she answered. 

Mrs. Penniman, however, with her high concep- 
tion of the sanctity of pledges, carried her point. 
“ I have gone too far to retreat,” she said, though 
precisely what this meant she was not at pains to 
explain. “ Mr. Townsend wishes most particularly 
to see you, Catherine ; he believes that if you knew 
how much, and why, he wishes it, you would con- 
sent to do so.” 

“ There can be no reason,” said Catherine ; “ no 
good reason.” 

“ His happiness depends upon it. Is not that a 
good reason ?” asked Mrs. Penniman, impressively. 

17 


258 


WASHINGTON SQUAKE. 


“ Not for me. My happiness does not.” 

I think you will be liappier after you have seen 
him. He is going away again — going to resume 
his wanderings. It is a very lonely, restless, joyless 
life. Before he goes he wishes to speak to you ; it 
is a fixed idea with him — he is always thinking of 
it. He has something very important to say to you. 
He believes that you never understood him — that 
you never judged him rightly, and the belief has al- 
ways weighed upon him terribly. He wishes to jus- 
tify himself ; he believes that in a very few words 
he could do so. He wishes to meet you as a 
friend.” 

Catherine listened to this wonderful speech with- 
out pausing in her work ; she had now had several 
days to accustom herself to think of Morris Town- 
send again as an actuality. When it was over she 
said simply, ‘‘ Please say to Mr. Townsend that I wish 
he would leave me alone.” 

She had hardly spoken when a sharp, firm ring at 
the door vibrated through the summer night. Cath- 
erine looked up at the clock ; it marked a quarter 
past nine — a v^}^ late hour for visitors, especially in 
the empty condition of the town. Mrs. Penniman 
at the same moment gave a little start, and then 
Catherine’s eyes turned quickly to her aunt. They 
met Mrs. Penniman’s, and sounded them for a mo- 
ment sharply. Mrs. Penniman was blushing; her 
look was a conscious one ; it seemed to confess some- 
thing. Catherine guessed its meaning, and rose 
quickly from her chair. 

“ Aunt Penniman,” she said, in a tone that scared 
her companion, have you taken the liberty . . . .^” 


WASHINGTON SQUARE; 


259 


‘‘ My dearest Catherine,” stammered Mrs. Penui- 
mari, “ just wait till you see him !” 

Catherine had frightened her aunt, but she was 
also frightened herself ; she was on the point of rush- 
ing to give orders to the servant, who was passing 
to the door, to admit no one ; but the fear of meet- 
ing her visitor checked her. 

‘‘Mr. Morris Townsend.” 

This was what she heard, vaguely but recogniza- 
bly, articulated by the domestic, while she hesitated. 
She had her back turned to the door of the par- 
lor, and for some moments she kept it turned, feel- 
ing that he had come in. He had not spoken, how- 
ever, and at last she faced about. Then she saw a 
gentleman standing in the middle of the room, from 
which her aunt had discreetly retired. 

She would never have known him. He was for- 
ty-five years old, and his figure was not that of the 
straight, slim young man she remembered. But it 
was a very fine presence, and a fair and lustrous 
beard, spreading itself upon a well-presented chest, 
contributed to its effect. After a moment Cathe- 
rine recognized the upper half of the face, which, 
though her visitor’s clustering locks had grown thin, 
was still remarkably handsome. He stood in a deeply 
deferential attitude, with his eyes on her face. “ I 
have ventured — I have ventured ;” he said, and then 
he paused, looking about him, as if he expected her 
to ask him to sit down. It was the old voice ; but 
it had not the old charm. Catherine, for a minute, 
was conscious of a distinct determination not to in- 
vite him to take a seat. Why had he come? It 
was wrong for him to come. Morris was ernbar- 


260 


WASHINGTON SQUARE. 


rassed, but Catherine gave him no help. It was 
not that she was glad of his embarrassment ; on the 
contrary, it excited all her own liabilities of this 
kind, and gave her great p-ain. But how could she 
welcome him when she felt so vividly that he ought 
not to have come ? ‘‘I wanted so much — I was de- 

termined,” Morris went on. But he stopped again ; 
it was not easy. Catherine still said nothing, and 
he may well have recalled with apprehension her 
ancient faculty of silence. She continued to look 
at him, however, and as she did so she made the 
strangest observation. It seemed to be he, and yet 
not he; it was the man who had been everything, 
and yet this person was nothing. How long ago it 
was — how old she had grown — how much she had 
lived ! She had lived on something that was con- 
nected with him^ and she had consumed it in doing 
so. This person did not look unhappy. He was 
fair and well-preserved, perfectly dressed, mature 
and complete. As Catherine looked at him, the 
story of his life defined itself in his eyes ; he had 
made himself comfortable, and he had never been 
caught. But even while her perception opened it- 
self to this, she had no desire to catch him ; his pres- 
ence was painful to her, and she only wished he 
would go. 

“ AVill you not sit down he asked. 

“ I think we had better not,” said Catherine. 

‘‘I offend you by coming?” He was very grave; 
he spoke in a tone of the richest respect. 

I don’t think you ought to have come.” 

Did not Mrs. Penniman tell you — did she not 
give you my message ?” 


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WASHINGTON SQUARE. 263 

“ She told me something, but I did not* under- 
stand.” 

“ I wish you would let me tell you — ^let me speak 
for myself.” 

“ I don’t think it is necessary,” said Catherine. 

“ ]N^ot for you, perhaps, but for me. It would be 
a great satisfaction — and I have not many.” He 
seemed to be coming nearer ; Catherine turned away. 
“ Can we not be friends again ?” he asked. 

“We are not enemies,” said Catherine. “I have 
none but friendly feelings to you.” 

“Ah, I wonder whether you know the happiness 
it gives me to hear you say that !” Catherine utter- 
ed no intimation that she measured the influence of 
her words; and he presently went on, “ You have 
not changed — the years have passed happily for you;” 

“ They have passed very quietly,” said Catherine. 

“They have left. no marks; you are admirably 
young.” This time he succeeded in coming nearer 
— he was close to her ; she saw his glossy perfumed 
beard, and his eyes above it looking strange and 
hard. It was very different from his old — from his 
young — face. If she had first seen him this way 
she would not have liked him. It seemed to her 
that he was smiling, or trying to smile. “ Cathe- 
rine,” he said, lowering his voice, “I have never 
ceased to think of you.” 

“Please don’t say these things,” she answered. 

“ Do you hate me ?” 

“ Oh no,” said Catherine. 

Something in her tone discouraged him, but in 
a moment he recovered himself. “ Have you still 
some kindness for me, then ?” 


264 


WASHINGTON SQUARE. 


“ I don’t know why you have come here to ask 
me such things !” Catherine exclaimed. 

“ Because; for many years it has been the desire 
of my life that we should be friends again.” 

“ That is impossible.” 

‘‘Why so? E’ot if you will allow it.” 

“ I will not allow it,” said Catherine. 

He looked at her again in silence. “ I see ; my 
presence troubles you and pains you. I will go 
away ; but you must give me leave to come again.” 

“ Please don’t come again,” she said. 

“ Hever ?— never ?” 

She made a great effort ; she wished to say some- 
thing that would make it impossible he should ever 
again cross her threshold. “ It is wrong of you. 
There is no propriety in it — no reason for it.” 

“Ah, dearest lady, you do me injustice !” cried 
Morris Townsend. “We have only waited, and now 
we are free.” 

“You treated me badly,” said Catherine. 

“Hot if you think of it rightly. You had your 
quiet life with your father — which was just what I 
could not make up my mind to rob you of.” 

“ Yes ; I had that.” 

Morris felt it to be a considerable damage to his 
cause that he could not add that she had had some- 
thing more besides ; for it is needless to say that he 
had learned the contents of Doctor Sloper’s will. He 
was, nevertheless, not at a loss. “ There are worse 
fates than that!” he exclaimed, with expression; and 
he might have been supposed to refer to his own 
unprotected situation. Then he added, with a deeper 
tenderness, “ Catherine, have you never forgiven me ?” 


WASHINGTON SQUARE. 265 

1 forgave yon years ago, but it is useless for us 
to attempt to be friends.” 

“ Not if we forget the past. W e have still a fut- 
ure, thank God !” . 

“ I can’t forget — I don’t forget,” said Catherine. 
“You treated me too badly. I felt it very much; 
I felt it for years.” And then she went on, with her 
wish to show him that he must not come to her 
this way, “ I can’t begin again — I can’t take it up. 
Everything is dead and buried. It was too serious ; 
it made a great change in my life. I never expected 
to see you here.” 

“ Ah, you are angry !” cried Morris, who wished 
immensely that he could extort some flash of passion 
from her calmness. In that case he might hope. 

“No, I am not angry. Anger does not last that 
way for years. But there are other things. Im- 
pressions last, when they have been strong. But I 
can’t talk.” 

Morris stood stroking his beard, with a clouded 
eye. “ Why have you never married ?” he asked, 
abruptly. “ You have had opportunities.” 

“ I didn’t wish to marry.” 

“Yes, you are rich, you are free; you had noth- 
ing to gain.” 

“I had nothing to gain,” said Catherine. 

Morris looked vaguely round him, and gave a deep 
sigh. “Well, I was in hopes that we might still 
have been friends.” 

“I meant to tell you, by my aunt, in answer to 
your message — if you had waited for an answer — 
that it was unnecessary for you to come in that 
hope.” 


266 


WASHINGTON SQUARE. 


“ Good-bye, then,” said Morris. “ Excuse my in- 
discretion.” 

He bowed, and she turned away — standing there, 
averted, with her eyes on the ground, for some mo- 
ments after she had heard him close the door of the 
room. 

In the hall he found Mrs. Penniman, fluttered and 
eager; she appeared to have been hovering there 
under the irreconcilable promptings of her curiosity 
and her dignity. 

“ That was a precious plan of yours !” said Morris, 
clapping on his hat. 

‘‘ Is she so hard ?” asked Mrs. Penniman. 

‘‘ She doesn’t care a button for me — with her con- 
founded little dry manner.” 

“ Was it very dry ?” pursued Mrs. Penniman, with 
solicitude. 

Morris took no notice of her question ; he stood 
musing an instant, with his hat on. ‘‘ But why the 
deuce, then, would she never marry ?” 

“Yes — why indeed?” sighed Mrs. Penniman. 
And then, as if from a sense of the inadequacy of 
this explanation, “ But you will not despair — you 
will come back?” ' .'y >* ' '' 

“ Come back ? Damnation !” "'And Morris Town- ^ 
send strode out of the house, leaving Mrs. Penniman 
staring. 

Catherine, meanwhile, in the parlor, picking up 
her morsel of fancy-work, had seated herself with it 
again — for life, as it were. 'p "/ [ 

• the EiJbf. ■' ■ i. 

si/' . . ■ 

WS „,r ■/ I 


SOME POPULAR NOVELS 

Published by HARPER & BROTHERS, New York. 


The Novels in this list which are not otherwise designated are in Octavo, pam- 
phlet form, and may he obtained in half-binding [leather backs and paste- 
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For a FtJLi. List of Novels published by Harper & Brothers, see Harper’s 
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12mo 1 25 

A Princess of Thule 50 

12ino 1 25 

Green Pastures and Piccadilly 50 

12nio 1 25 

In Silk Attire 35 

12ino 1 25 

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Love or Marriage ? 30 

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4to, Paper 10 

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The Strange Adventures of a Phaeton 50 

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The Virginians in Texas.. 75 

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Clara Vaughan 4to, Paper 15 

Cradock Nowell. 

Cripps the Carrier 50 

Erema 50 

LornaDoone 

Mary Anerley I61110, Cloth 1 00 

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Miss Dorothy’s Charge 75 

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Mr. Vaughan’s Heir 75 

My Daughter Elinor 80 

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A Strange Story. Illustrated 50 

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Leila 25 

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My Novel 75 

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Paul Clifford 40 

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What will He do with it? ! 75 

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Zanoni 35 


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3 


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A Strange World 40 

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Bound to John Company. Illustrated.... 50 

Charlotte’s Inheritance 35 

Dead Men’s Shoes 40 

Dead Sea Fruit. Illustrated 50 

Eleanor’s Victory 60 

Fenton’s Quest. Illustrated 50 

Hostages to Fortune. Illustrated 50 

John Marchmont’s Legacy 50 

Joshua Haggard’s Daughter. Illustrated 50 

Lost for Love. Illustrated 50 

Mistletoe Bough for Christmas, 1878. Edited by M. E. Brad- 

don 4to, Paper 15 

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Strangers and Pilgrims. Illustrated 50 

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Anne Warwick 25 

Hard to Bear. See Two Tales of Married Life. 30 

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Harper dt Brothers' Popular Novels. 


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After Dark, and Other Stories. — Antonina. — Armadale. — Ba- 
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Barnabv Budge 1 00 

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Christmas Stories 1 00 

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David Copper field 1 00 

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Dombey and Son . , 1 00 

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Little Dorrit . 
Martin Chuzzlewit. 


Nicholas Nickleby 1 00 


Our Mutual Friend 


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Oliver Twist 50 

Cloth 1 00 

1 00 

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Pickwick Papers 1 00 

50 
20 


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Notes 1 00 

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1 00 Cloth 1 25 

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Cloth 1 25 

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The Mill on the Floss 50 

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Cousin Phillis 20 

Cranford IGmo 1 25 

Mary Barton 40 

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My Lady Ludlow 20 

North and South 40 

Right at Last, &c .12mo 1 50 

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32mo, Paper 25 

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% 


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Harper & Brothers’ Popular Novels. 


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HAY’S (Mary Cecil) A Dark Inheritance 32mo, Paper$ 15 

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Back to the Old Home 32mo, Paper 20 

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Victor and Vanquished 25 

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LAWRENCE’S Anteros. . . 40 

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Guy Livingstone 12mo 1 50 

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Cloth 1 00 

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One of Them 50 

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The Daltons 1 75 

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The Martins of Cro’ Martin 60 

Tonv Butler 60 

Cloth 1 10 


607 







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